


The Thing

by sharkbuddie



Series: The Life and Death of the Human Race [1]
Category: Among Us (Video Game)
Genre: Body Horror, Death, Fan Characters, Horror, LGBTQ Character, LGBTQ Themes, Long, Multi, Outer Space, Parasites, Psychological Horror, Scary, Survival Horror
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-25
Updated: 2020-11-14
Packaged: 2021-03-07 20:26:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 17
Words: 34,631
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26643712
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sharkbuddie/pseuds/sharkbuddie
Summary: What have they done?
Series: The Life and Death of the Human Race [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2015218
Comments: 35
Kudos: 87





	1. A Bad Day at Work

**Author's Note:**

> Among Us fanfiction featuring my Among Us sona? Yessir yessir, also featuring da homies because I mean why not. Enjoy!

In Earth time, it was about six o’clock in the morning when the robotic melody of “Daisy Bell” played over the loudspeakers of _The Skeld._ It played twice a day - once to wake the crewmembers, and once to tell them it was time to stop working and go to bed, around eleven o’clock at night. It was a sound that was dreaded by Doctor Emmy, who would happily perform invasive surgery on the communication systems if it meant the bouncy, droning tune would shut up faster. It was, realistically, only about 40 seconds of annoyance before she could start her day. But it was enough to put her in a chronically bad mood. When the tones rang out on one particular ‘morning’ and the UV lights flashed on, she groaned, rolling over to feel around for her glasses on her bedside table. It was cluttered with pens and various notes, and in her haste to find her glasses she knocked her favorite mug ( still containing residue of the latte she had made the previous morning ) to the floor, where it clunked heavily. When she grabbed a hold of the purple frames she slipped them onto her face with a grimace, then stared up at the ceiling with a scowl. Above her, a projection of the current solar system they were in sparkled with a scientifically accurate depiction of the stars, planets, and the insane amount of frozen comets floating around in the void. It was pretty - but all it did was make her nauseous as it spun lazily. She hated waking up this early. Being up at times like this had always been a problem for her - in medical training, she was chronically grumpy and fell asleep in class more often than she cared to admit. Grueling hours spent training before her coffee kicked in made her sour, what could she say? 

With a headache already forming behind her left eye, Emmy swung her legs over the side of her bed and heaved an exhausted sigh. She yawned and stretched as she slowly rose to her feet. Emmy wasn’t tall, only standing at about 5’4”, and she was noticeably chubby. Her soft curves and stretch-marked belly were shown off as she stretched, her pink sleeping shirt rising with her shoulders. Her pajamas did not reflect her normally serious attitude - she had her pink shirt with a white heart in the center, and soft pink pajama pants with white hearts on them. Her hair was a tangle of red with the feel of cornsilk. Her eyes were a dull blue-gray, and always had dark circles and heavy bags under them. She was the palest member of her team, the darkest portion of her being the smattering of freckles flung carelessly across the bridge of her nose and just under her eyes. Overall - unremarkable. 

Getting ready in the morning, for her, consisted of taking a shower, taking her medications ( a pill for her chronic anxiety, a pill for her acid reflux, and an anti-radiation pill ), brushing her hair into a high ponytail which was secured by a black scrunchie covered in silver stars, and dragging her miserable corpse to the cafeteria after donning her pink uniform. On her right breast, her uniform had a bisexual pride patch ironed on, as well as _**MEDIC**_ in bold black lettering. Her left upper arm had the red cross sewn in. She sat alone near the back of the cafeteria and sipped her latte as the other members of the crew started to flood the cafeteria one by one. They had all known each other since their teen years; training for this program was intense and took years of conditioning. To be on The Skeld, out in unexplored space, was a privilege that only these ten members shared. There were other teams and other ships, sure, but _The Skeld_ was for the best of the best. Or - that what they told Emmy, when she finished her training and was told her application to be planetside on _Polis_ had been rejected. 

“You’re too advanced for a place like that,” is what her mentor had told her. “We want you out there, studying. Bringing back samples. You know.”

_The Skeld_ was fine. It was small - the facilities were laughable - but it was fine. She got her own dedicated room so she didn’t have to sleep in the communal quarters, which was a special accommodation that only she and the captain got. Of course, hers was a converted closet with barely enough space to stand and his was an honest-to-goodness master bedroom in comparison ( complete with its own bathroom ), but who cared? She was in space! Her dream of being out in the universe studying had been fulfilled. Who cared how she got there, or how the conditions were? It was about the pursuit of knowledge!

“Hey Em,” came a familiar voice. Emmy looked up with a scowl to see the captain, all bright-eyed and cool as ever. His designation was ‘lime green,’ so his uniform was as offensively saturated as Emmy’s. He had the _**CAPTAIN**_ patch on his right breast, as well as the insignia of _The Skeld._ His helmet had a little twig with two tiny leaves on the top, something he had sheepishly asked her to make possible some time ago. He wanted a ‘little green friend’ to take along with him. Something about organic matter making him feel closer to home or some goofy shit like that. He was handsome by conventional standards, with delicious brown eyes and silky black hair. His nose was his most noticeable feature, Emmy thought. It had been broken and never healed correctly, so it was crooked. And yet, she couldn’t deny that he was pretty. It certainly didn’t hurt that he was around six-foot-something. She had his medical file - but the details always got fuzzy when he spoke. His real name was Hugh. 

“Morning,” she grumbled. He was holding two plates - one had eggs and rehydrated bacon, the other was various sliced fruits on a bed of yogurt. It all smelled good - but her stomach turned. Something about not getting enough sleep always made her feel sick. It didn’t help that she was lactose intolerant and drank a fucking latte every morning. She accepted the plate of bacon and eggs, and promptly ignored it and sipped her drink. It was getting cold and stale, and the vanilla flavoring tasted off. Hugh sat down across from her and picked up a slice of strawberry and ate it. It crunched, and they both snorted. 

“Didn’t rehydrate quite right, I’m guessing?” Emmy said sardonically. She had a little curl of a smile on her face. 

Hugh couldn’t stop himself from chuckling, “Guess not. It was giving me trouble. I’ll get Lucky on it.”

Emmy couldn’t hold her eye roll. Something about that dumb engineer really got under her skin. What business did he have being so...jovial, all the damn time? Always laughing and singing - always messing around with Green. Lucky was designated ‘cyan,’ and they had never gotten along. It wasn’t for a lack of trying, of course. Lucky was as nice as they come and always had a joke or a snack. Emmy was just...a sourpuss who was fifty at twenty. 

“Don’t be so fussy this early,” Hugh chided. He scooped up a spoonful of yogurt and ate it, shaking his head. “You gotta lighten up.”

Emmy shifted in her seat, right leg crossing over the other. She clutched her mug like a dragon might clutch something precious. “I’ll lighten up when I’m dead.” 

It was Hugh’s turn to roll his eyes. He took another bite of his yogurt before speaking up again, “How’s the work coming along? I know you said you found something weird on that last space rock we picked up.”

Ah. That was the magic word, apparently. She perked up and took a sip of her latte, before setting the mug down and folding her hands on the table. She actually had a smile.

“I did. It’s organic - which is insane, because nothing organic should be able to survive out here. The void of space is very cold, and it doesn’t have an atmosphere to support life. I mean - water bears can do it back home, but we aren’t back home. So who knows what this is. It’s also...oddly large. I’m still trying to work out how something of its composition, size, and anatomy survives out there. And on a barren, icy rock, too.”

“People live in Alaska, don’t they?”

Emmy rolled her eyes, and gave a half-laugh at that. “Yeah, Hugh. Because _Alaska_ temperatures are even _remotely_ comparable to the temps outside this ship. Uhuh.”

“Gosh, you must be fun at parties.”

“I don’t get invited to parties.”

“And I cannot imagine why.”

The rest of breakfast was enjoyed in relative silence. The other crew members were rowdy even at this time of day, but Hugh talked quietly enough to be palatable. It was easy to half-listen and plan her work for the day, and she found that to be pleasant. Hugh was a good Captain. Their Earth origins didn’t really ever come up, but they had bonded over being misfit midwesterners. They’d both been geeks in high school, the only difference being that he grew up to be toned and have the heart of a lion, and she grew up to obsess over strange bacteria and hate people. It was an interesting case of psychology, that was for sure. 

When meal time was over, dishes were dumped into the collection bucket for the kitchen robot to deal with. That was one of the very few upgrades this ship had - the kitchen was semi-automated. You still had to make most of your own stuff, but occasionally the chef bot would be in working order and you could pick up something small, and the dish robot was always busy. After giving up her half-eaten bacon and eggs and her empty mug, she brushed her uniform off and headed for her lab. Well - calling it a ‘lab’ was generous. It was a closet, really; a shoebox-sized work space where she was expected to discover the mysteries of the universe and take care of her crewmates. She swiped her ID card and the door hissed open, which in turn signaled the interior lights to flicker on. Unlike the rest of the ship, this room was outfitted with halogen lights. UV allowed for things to happen without her saying so. Halogen was the only light source that was approved for ‘labs’ on board vessels like this. It always gave her a headache, and it was definitely not helping how pale she was.

Her work began as normal. She took her little samples of thick, pinkish slime and tested them in various fluids to see if they survived; some of which were acids, some were things as simple as salt water. She tested them at various temperatures, put them under the electron microscope and looked at their makeup. They were alive - she could see the cells dividing under the lens. They did so at an almost alarmingly fast rate, but it didn’t worry her much. It was just something fun to add to her notes. It was working out to be a pretty good day. 

Then, as usual, Lucky had to do his rounds down her side of the ship. Even through her door she could hear him singing that stupid song - _daisy, daisy, give me your answer do…_

It annoyed her. But it was easy enough to ignore - so she picked up a tube of purple fluid and carefully dipped the pipette she was holding into it. With the utmost care, she began to release the sample into the fluid…

...and then, without warning, the lights cut. The sudden plunge into darkness caused her to gasp, and jump - the tube fell to the floor and audibly shattered. Normally when the power went out like this it was only for a few seconds, so as panic began to wrap its tendrils around her chest she counted. “One...two...three…”

The lights were always back on at four beats. She was definitely panicking now - blindly, she fumbled for the wall. She could hear Lucky on the other side of the room, beyond her wall, banging on something and yelling. She felt around for the emergency kit affixed to her wall, trying to use her memory of this shoebox room to find it. It had a flashlight under all the other junk - she just needed the flashlight, oh god, why did she never wear the flashlight that was supposed to mount on her suit - 

With a loud hum of the generators, the light came back on. Emmy took a deep breath, lungs and eyes stinging. Had oxygen been going down? Her head felt dizzy, and her heart rate was visibly spiking. She moved quickly to her computer and pulled up the vitals of her crew - and heaved a great sigh when she saw eleven healthy heartbeats. Ten crew, and one child. 

The door hissed open as Lucky shoved it out of his way. His little boy clung tearfully to his thick leg. Emmy whipped around to look at them, and sighed again.

“Good lord,” she said in exasperation. She pressed a hand over her heart. God, she hated the dark. “It’s just you two. What on Earth was that?”

“No idea. I was headed to the upper engine to make sure it was running and then the lights fucked off.”

As the fear and panic of the lights being off began to subside, Emmy suddenly remembered her beef with the man in front of her. He was about the same size as she was, though considerably thicker and more attractive. He had bright pink hair, rosy cheeks, big grey eyes, and the most perfect lips in the galaxy. His file pegged him as 5’5”, but it had been an argument since the dawn of their knowing each other that they were, actually, the same height. Instead of your typical uniform he was always wearing goggles and blue overalls, and...sneakers, of all things. The little boy on his leg was his spitting image, and his shadow. She felt a twinge of emotion when she saw his scared little face poke out from behind his father. 

How odd, that the last time the three of them had been in this room together it was for his birth. That had been a fiasco in itself. Emmy still didn’t understand how or why Lucky had come down with a parasite before takeoff, and she understood even less how and why it survived being frozen for so long. Suspended animation was amazing, but…

“Doctor Emmy, I think you spilled something…”

“What?”

She looked where Little Lucky was pointing - and scowled. Purple fluid and glass littered the floor. She went for the hazardous material kit on her wall, quickly pulling out some gloves, a specimen bag, and some industrial grade sanitizer. 

“Alright - we’ve established we’re fine. Out of my office - I’m sure Captain will be on the speaker soon enough, and I don’t want you two breaking anything.”

Emmy was harsh. It made Lucky scowl as he plucked his baby from the floor and held him on his hip. “You’re _welcome._ I didn’t have to check on you.” 

“Next time, _don’t._ ” 

As she bent down to begin cleaning, Hugh did indeed come over the loudspeaker. He assured the ship that it was fine, just used a little too much power at once and drifted a little too close to something electrically charged. No big deal. No injuries. But, Dark Green and Cyan, please head to electrical. 

It took a minute for it to dawn on her that glass and purple fluid were the only things on the floor. It didn’t register at first. The concept was just too horrifying - her sample couldn’t...be gone, could it? It was alive, but it wasn’t sentient. It wasn’t as if it was an insect or a slime mold, or…

No. No, no, no no. There was a wet trail of purple liquid leading towards the vent on the floor. 

Emmy dropped everything and ran. She had never been athletic - she had barely qualified physically to be on this mission. She was asthmatic and could barely take a flight of stairs without losing her breath. But not now - raw, animalistic panic took over and forced her to sprint to the cafeteria. She ripped the plastic covering off the button on the very middle table, and slammed it as hard as she could. Alarms began blaring throughout the entire ship - and as she heard her crewmates footsteps as they ran for the cafeteria, tears began to run down her face. 

She had no idea what she had just done, but something deep in her chest told her that this ship was about to suffer beyond measure.


	2. Bulletproof Plan

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The crew discusses the horrors of their new reality.

“Alright. So what are we facing?” 

The cafeteria was uncomfortably silent. All eleven people sat around the center table stiffly, shoulder to shoulder, with Hugh being the only exception as he stood to address his crew. He was cool, though concerned. Keeping his head in intense situations had always been his strong suit. Emmy admired that about him, even now as she shook in her suit and tried very hard to steady her breathing. All of them had their tablets out. It was ominous. Emmy felt all ten pairs of eyes affixed to her. She focused on her tablet screen - eleven healthy heartbeats. It was her only source of comfort. 

“I...don’t know,” she said quietly. She lacked her usual arrogance. This experience - this tragedy they were possibly up against, had humbled her in the cruelest way possible. For once she didn’t have the answers. “I don’t have enough data to know what the...sample...is capable of. I didn’t even know it was sentient.” 

Lucky rubbed his temples across the table, “What do you mean you _didn’t know?_ Isn’t studying it your _entire_ fucking job?” 

Dark green piped up, which snagged everyone’s attention. “Biology is weird. Some things just...y’know. Do stuff.”

Emmy appreciated his addition. They were the only two life scientists on board and had studied together for a number of years while in training. Dark green - whose name was actually Oakley - was a pretty Native man from somewhere in Oklahoma. His suit was always covered in dirt since he worked in the botany sector of the ship, keeping the plants alive and the fresh oxygen flowing. He had _**BIO**_ in bold on the right side of his chest, and on his left arm he had a patch with a little tree inside a tube-shaped dome. His skin was rich and dark, with a splash of freckles across his face. His hair was fluffy and textured, and sometimes he let Lucky braid it for him. At that particular moment, it was free, and hung beautifully around his soft face, which was twisted into a look of concern. 

“I don’t think it will survive long inside the ship,” Emmy added hoarsely. She wished she had some water - anything to cool the burn in her throat and the anxiety smoldering in her chest. “It seemed to die when not within certain temperatures, and it isn’t humid enough to maintain its mucus membrane.” 

“Then we don’t have anything to worry about.” 

Purple was the one who spoke. She was in charge of navigation. She was Australian if Emmy recalled correctly, born and raised in the bush in a huge family of meat farmers. She had seven sisters who all looked the same; curly brown hair, big olive green eyes, warm olive skin and upturned pixie noses. She was very muscular, and Emmy...found her very beautiful, if not a little intimidating. Her suit was a deep purple, as was her designation, and _**NAV**_ rested on her chest in bold print. She also had a bi patch, like Emmy did - and on her left arm she had a patch with a tarantula on it. 

“I don’t think it’s that simple, Margo,” Hugh replied. He rubbed his chin between his thumb and forefinger. “We aren’t sure that it will die on the ship. Emmy, you said it survived out in space with no protection from cold or from radiation, right?”

“That’s right…”

“...but you also said it needs humidity to keep up its slime?”

“I...did, yes…”

The two of them came to the same realization at the same time, and Emmy couldn’t help but groan. She rubbed her face with her hands, before resting her elbows on the table. “It adapts. That’s why it didn’t die when it hit the floor.”

The group began to murmur nervously. The implications were horrific. If it could adapt, what else could it do? Did it eat? And if it did, what was its food? Did it breathe? 

“Well, that’s just _great!_ Bang up job, Em.” 

It was Lucky who broke the silence. He looked furious - his face was red, and his bean browns were knit together. His son looked very scared from what little Emmy could see. Of course he was - he was five, and there was an alien running around the ship. Even the adults were afraid. 

“Lucky, there’s no need to -”

“Shut up, Oakley. She’s the dumbass who dropped the test tube!”

Emmy scoffed, “I’m not the one in charge of electrical.”

It was Yellow’s turn to be offended. He was tall and broad, with bleach blond hair and tan skin. He was Canadian - as the patch on his left arm told - and an idiot. His real name was Jasper. He and Emmy barely interacted but when they did, Emmy felt her brain cells dying out. “Hey! This is not on me. I didn’t navigate us into an electrical storm - “

“ _¡Pinche güey!_ It didn’t show up on the scan! Not to mention _I’m_ not in charge of keeping asteroids off our ass!”

No, she wasn’t. Weapons fell to Red, an Irish weapons expert with chocolatey hair and ocean blue eyes. She was covered in so many freckles it almost hid how pale she was, and her real name was Orla. She slammed her fists on the table. “This isn’t my fault either, Margo, some of us have jobs with more balls to juggle!”

“Or you had a snoot full,” Margo shot back, “Unreliable son of a -”

“Alright, _enough!_ ” 

Hugh was not one to yell, but he had enough. He placed his palms on the table and leaned on them, heaving a deep sigh. The room was silent once again. When he spoke, you listened. Not just because he was the captain, either. There was something captivating about him. 

“So we’re up against an unknown organism. We don’t know what it can do, or what it could want, or even if it has wants are abilities. It might be fine, but we’re going to take some precautions. Helmets on during work hours, check in every thirty minutes, and let everyone know if you see it. Okay?”

The room mumbled in agreement, then peeled off to their respective stations as Hugh dismissed them. Emmy was annoyed to find a sticky note on her helmet with the word ‘dum’ written in sharpie on it. They all kept their helmets at the back of the cafeteria for simplicity, so it could’ve been anyone. But the way Lucky snickered and leered at her, she had a pretty good idea of who it was. 

She decided to leave it on. Angry as she was, it was kind of funny. 

The rest of her work day was boring. She was nervous about working with her remaining samples, so she incinerated them and focused on updating her files and running diagnostics on herself. Medical scans were a daily requirement for each crew member, so one after another each member was scanned and recorded. Nothing outrageous happened. It was like a day stuck in the clinic during her training - just paperwork, just data. And that’s how it stayed. 

The monotony of work was buffered by lunch time. It was quieter than normal, with everyone on edge, and little was actually eaten. Emmy sat alone, and the absence of Hugh was noticed. Both he and Blue ( a short, grumpy Brit who went by Archie ) did not join the rest of the crew. Hugh made sense to her, as he was likely working. But Blue was in charge of shields. Maybe the incident earlier had messed with them? Emmy didn’t put much mind to it. She had a loose specimen to worry about. 

Halfway through her rehydrated mac and cheese, Oakley, Lucky, and Little Lucky took a seat at Emmy’s table. As they sat she took a tentative sip of her vitamin water, eying them cautiously.

“Hey,” Lucky grumbled. His baby settled next to him, munching on a whole cucumber like it was a stick of cheese. It crunched loudly as he ate it. “Oakley thinks I should apologize for being mean to you.”

Oakley, who was happily eating a bowl of ramen, nodded with a mouthful of noodles. 

“It would set a good example for Ollie,” Emmy said, gesturing to the little boy. She slid the white chocolate chip cookie she had been saving across the table to him, and he accepted it excitedly. “But you don’t have to.”

Lucky rolled his eyes. His thumb found the trans flag on his uniform, which he began toying with. He liked pulling on a loose thread it had. It drove Emmy insane. “Whatever. I’m sorry for being a dick in front of the captain like that. It...isn’t your fault the lights died and you dropped the tube. I probably would’ve done the same thing.”

“Probably not. You’ve got a steadier hand than I do.”

That was true, actually. Not only was Lucky a talented engineer, but he was also an artist in his spare time. His bunk area was littered with doodles and drawings, both from him and his little boy. The talent was hereditary, it seemed. 

Oakley nodded happily. “See? Getting along. Coexisting. It’s important out here, y’know? We’re all one big family.”

Lucky and Emmy spoke at the same time, “I wouldn’t go that far.”

They looked at each other, and began to laugh - 

And then the lights cut. Red alarm lights began flashing and the warning alarm went off. The doors to the cafeteria slammed shut. 

A robotic female voice came over the loud speaker;

_“Attention. Attention. All personnel, a reactor meltdown is now in progress. Attention. Attention.”_


	3. Hide and Seek

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When will the insanity end? Tension is beginning to build, and Emmy questions the reliability of ship.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> chapter THREE? hell yeah! also, important to mention - Emmy is nonbinary!

The reactor was not far from the cafeteria. As they ran, they could hear it burbling and growling in radioactive defiance. It was a fusion reactor - and while that was a marvel of science that essentially harvested the power of a star, it was still unbelievably unstable. Maintaining it took expertise that only Orange had the training for. But when it came to meltdowns, anyone fast enough to reach the control panel could fix it. 

Lucky, Oakley and Emmy made it there first. Emmy went for the left, while the other two ( plus Ollie ) went right. They swiped their ID cards in sync, ripped off a glove, and slammed their hands on the scanner pad. 

“Come on, come on,” Emmy chanted breathlessly. The other members of the crew reached the room as the panel began to scan their hands. _“Come on!”_

A happy _do-do!_ chimed from the scanners, and everyone heaved a collective sigh of relief as the chugging stopped. The reactor began cooling itself down. Emmy pressed her forehead against the warm steel wall. Today had been a carnival of horror and it was only mid afternoon. What else could possibly go wrong? 

Hugh pushed his way through the crowd of assembled spacemen to the center of the reactor room. He swiped his ID card and a panel unfolded, revealing the status of the reactor and various outputs. Levels were returning to normal, slowly but surely. Hugh folded then panel back up and turned to address his crew. 

“Sound off!” 

“Red!” 

“Orange!”

“Yellow, sir!” 

“Oakley - I mean, Green! Sorry.” 

“Cyan!” 

“Purple!” 

Emmy was quiet. “Pink, Captain.” 

There was silence. 

Two people were missing. 

Hugh paused. “Archie, Hazel, sound off!” 

Nothing. Only the deep thrum of the engines and the warmth of the reactor. Emmy and Lucky exchanged looks from across the room - they shared an understanding. Lucky placed Ollie behind himself. 

“Emmy - check their status.”

“Yes, Captain.”

Emmy’s hands were shaking. She raised her right arm to look at her tablet, and tabbed over to vitals. Eleven healthy heartbeats - the worst had not happened. But she couldn’t see where they were just by looking at her map. It only showed her where she was. With a great deal of discomfort, she relayed the bad news.

“...all vitals are holding steady, Captain.” 

It was an ominous statement, to be sure. Why had they not headed for the reactor like everyone else? White and Blue were friends. Maybe they ran for each other instead? Emmy thought that was reasonable. If she hadn’t been so worried about the reactor melting down, perhaps she would have ran for Hugh. Even so...why were they not here now? Uncomfortable silence ate up the room until Hugh found the words to disrupt it. 

“Alright. We’ll pair off and check the ship in quadrants. Oakley, you and Lucky take the cafeteria and weapons. Orla, Margo, take the engine rooms and storage. Ezra, go with Jasper and check O2 and nav. Emmy, you and I will cover shields and electrical. Everyone group up in admin - I want this ship searched within an inch of its life. Additionally, if you see the lifeform...report it immediately. Helmets on!”

“What about medbay?” Margo asked, “Should Oakley and Lucky check it on their way to the cafe?”

“No,” Hugh said firmly. His helmet hissed as the air-tight seal closed around his neck. When he spoke again, his voice sounded robotic as it passed through his vocoder. “Medbay will be left alone. Emmy locks up before lunch and I don’t want anyone poking around in there.”

The crew paired off as directed, and the hiss of helmets locking into place echoed throughout the room. The air-tight seal in their suits would keep them safe - that’s what Emmy told herself. The suits were made of thick material and so were the helmets. The air was filtered internally. The gloves were equipped to handle radioactive materials - so this would be fine. It would all...be... _fine._

Emmy and Hugh walked with Margo and Orla until they hit engines, and they were all acutely aware of their surroundings the entire time. Splitting off into twos felt like breaking up a hunting party; if a wild beast were to attack, would two people be enough to subdue it? The sample that had escaped was small and seemingly unremarkable, but if Elise and Archie had gotten involved with it there was no telling what could happen. Hugh and Emmy were silent as they crept up on electrical. Subconsciously, they pressed their sides to each other as they stepped into the dim room. The lights in here were always fussy no matter how many times Jasper fussed with them or Lucky tried to fix them. For the first time, Emmy found herself wishing she was armed. Silently, Hugh pressed a hand against Emmy’s chest to stop her from rounding the corner of the first block of electrical paneling. He picked up a wrench from the floor, where Jasper or Lucky had left a toolbox. Emmy found herself clutching her hands to her chest and wringing them as, slowly, her captain stepped into the darkness beyond. 

She flinched when he spoke. 

“Clear,” he said. “They’re not in here.” 

“Right. To shields, then.”

Emmy checked her tablet again as they made their way out of the room. Everyone was still alive, which was a good sign. She didn’t expect that to change, but with so many variables it was hard to know what to expect. 

Shields was an offshoot of the hallway that connected storage to navigation and O2. It was dim there, too, but not nearly as bad as electrical. Nobody was there - but something had triggered some of the shields to shut down. Hugh quickly tapped the screen to set them right, before they headed for admin. 

That was where they found them. 

Hazel and Archie - White and Blue, respectively - were on the far side of the room with their helmets off, laughing about something. Hazel’s lipstick was smeared on her face, and Archie had a smudge of red across his lips and his beard. Their attention snapped up to Hugh as he cleared his throat.

“Captain!” Hazel gasped. She quickly wiped her face and twisted her helmet on, though it was an awkward process given she had chosen to put her hair in poofy buns on her head that day. “I was - we were just - “

“Fraternizing during a ship-wide emergency? I see that.”

Archie chuckled stupidly, resting his helmet on his hip. “We figured someone would get it, and we been workin’ hard all day, Cap. C’mon.” 

“You weren’t at lunch,” Emmy said. She crossed her arms over her chest to mirror her captain. “What were you doing?”

Archie shrugged, as if it didn’t matter. “Working. Some of us know how to do our jobs without letting aliens loose.” 

“Taking shots at Pink isn’t going to make this any better for you, Blue.” 

Archie waved Hugh off. He had always been a little cocky; he was a self-identified ‘chav,’ whatever that meant, and had a thick Northern English accent. He was always messy and his beard always needed a trim. Hazel, who was from Southern England, deserved far better than him. She had gorgeous black skin and the most amazing curly hair, and her eyes were the color of pure ice. As a teen, she had been a model, but grew interested in STEM as she grew. Unlike Archie, of course, who joined because it offered him a chance to get off planet and away from his checkered past. Emmy liked Hazel. But Archie…

Hugh tilted his right hand backwards, and spoke into his in-suit radio. “All clear, they were in admin. Report to your posts and continue the work day. Keep your eyes peeled for the organism.” 

Hugh patted Emmy on the shoulder as he turned to leave. “Archie, please actually stay in your station. And Hazel - get to Comms where you belong.”

“Yes, captain,” they said. Hazel sounded remorseful, while Archie sounded annoyed. Emmy watched them head out with a suspicious look - but once they were gone, she decided to check the admin table. 

Technically, she didn’t have the authority to check it. But her ID card worked like a skeleton key in case of emergencies. Technically, if something were to happen to Hugh, she would be the next highest ranking officer. Not that she ever wanted to consider that as a possibility. From Admin, she could see a log of every sensor on the ship and who passed it, as well as their vitals. The logs made sense for the most part as she combed through them - Hugh passing the sensor to admin, Lucky, Oakley and Ollie passing the sensor in the West hallway from the reactor and where Oakley’s tree was. But what didn’t make sense...was Archie. The most recent sensor pass was when he left with Hazel, but the only one before that had been the Eastern hallway, on the way to shields. Or...it had to be on the way to shields, because he didn’t hit the sensor for the cafeteria entrance, weapons, O2, or navigation which were the only other things in that hallway. It didn’t make any sense…

Maybe it was because of the reactor meltdown or the electrical issue earlier. Nothing else, logically, could work. She scoffed at the unreliability of the ship and headed for her lab to continue her workday. 

Then, as she was walking, it dawned on her. 

Nobody had checked Comms. 

Worse...Emmy couldn't recall seeing the sensor to the communication hub pinging for anyone that day. Quickly, Emmy went ducked back into admin and swiped her card. She punched in the filter for that sensor, and was relieved to find she had been wrong. Both Archie and Hazel had pinged that sensor that day. 

Hazel pinged it twice - once at the beginning, and once for lunch. She could track Hazel's movements by what sensors she had tripped. She went from the sleeping quarters to the cafeteria, then from the cafeteria to storage, and then from storage she pinged into comms, which made sense. Archie pinged sometime after, moving in about the same pattern; quarters, cafeteria, Eastern hall, shields, comms. Then they both pinged around lunch - Hazel went from comms to shields ( presumably dropping Archie off ), then the Eastern Hall, and then the cafeteria. Archie stayed in shields for most of lunch...but midway through, he pinged the Eastern hall, and then navigation. If the logs were right - and there was, she acknowledged, a chance that they were not - Archie should have still been in navigation. There was no possible way to make it to admin without tripping the sensors. Unless he had done it while the reactor was going off - but that hadn't been for very long, and it looked like Hazel and Archie had been hanging out in admin for a considerable amount of time given the state they were in. 

Emmy filtered her search again, looking at only Hazel and Archie. 

Hazel had slipped out of the cafeteria before the meltdown, and almost immediately pinged admin. But Archie didn't ping the Eastern hall, or storage. 

How did he get into admin without tripping the sensors? Would Hazel have waited that long for him? Had they...planned the melt down? Had they planned the meeting? 

It didn't make sense. 

Emmy moved to the panel on the wall by the door and began downloading the data. She would try and make sense of it during work hours, and present it to Hugh later.

Something was wrong. Emmy could feel it in her gut.


	4. Suspicion

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Something is wrong. Very, very wrong. Or is the stress getting to Emmy?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CHAPTER FOUR: HERES SOME MORE

_Daisy, Daisy, give me your answer do. I’m half crazy all for the love of you._

Emmy twisted her wrist, ushering her tablet to awaken and show her the time. It was late - she had worked during her dinner, so without the break the time had blurred together. Nothing else had happened thankfully, but she had a compelling case that Blue was doing something questionable to present to Hugh. She was extra careful as she packed up her lab for the night. She had spent some time reorganizing her things so that if they found the organism it could be handled quickly by anyone. Of course...that meant she would have to keep her door unlocked, which presented unique threats on its own. If someone got into her things they could be in for quite a disaster. But the risk seemed worth it. If Hugh disagreed it was an easy enough fix. 

As she stood in front of the door to watch it hiss shut, she wondered, again, where her little specimen could have gotten to. Maybe it had frozen in the air vents, or maybe it dried out and died. It could adapt, but there was a limit to everything. That wasn’t conjecture - that was science. Everything was limited in one way or another. 

“Hey.”

Pink jumped. She turned to see Oakley with his hands resting on his belly. With their helmets on she couldn’t tell if he was smiling or not, but he surely was. Oakley was allergic to doing anything else. 

“Hello, Oakley,” she responded quietly. “What’s up?”

“Nothing really - I just wanted to, like, let you know that I don’t think it’s your fault the thing got loose. Also - did you work through dinner?”

She nodded. Carefully, Oakley pulled a little parcel of wrapped up paper towels and offered it to her. She took it, and blinked. 

“Lucky and I thought you might be hungry, so we saved you some dinner rolls. Ollie put a cookie in there for you, too.”

Emmy...couldn’t help herself. She smiled behind her visor. She wasn’t particularly used to people thinking of her, nor was she used to receiving gifts like this. “Thanks...I appreciate that a lot. Tell Lucky and Ollie I said thanks as well, ok?”

Oakley nodded. “Will do! Try and get some sleep tonight. I’m sure everything will work out okay.”

“I think so too. Thank you. Sweet dreams…!”

They began down the hall, Oakley heading towards sleeping quarters, and Emmy towards the cafe so she could get to hers. Hugh’s room was near admin, and hers was on the lower left side of storage. Stopping by to show him what she had found would be convenient, though she did feel a little shy about bringing the food parcel with her. It wasn’t against the rules or anything, but it would probably raise questions she wouldn’t quite know how to answer. Or maybe she was over-thinking it. She was good at that. 

Once she hit the door to Hugh’s room, she swiped her ID card and the door hissed open. 

Empty. Hugh was not inside. The lights were on - they were automatic and set to turn on whenever someone entered the room. His room was neat and orderly, his bed made, his desk organized meticulously. He had some posters for a few mech animes on his wall, but it was otherwise fairly plain. She stepped inside.

“Hugh? Captain - are you in here?” 

Of course he wasn’t. The room was bigger than her shoebox of a room, but you could still see the entire thing from the door. She did check under the bed and in his private bathroom, though, to no avail. His bathroom did make her jealous. He didn’t have to wait for showers, and she was pretty sure it had its own hot water supply. It was also delightfully clean - something that could absolutely not be said about the communal showers. 

Maybe he was still working. Emmy stepped out of the bathroom to head out to admin. 

Archie was waiting in the doorway. Emmy yelped. 

“Hey, Doc,” Archie said. His helmet was on his hip, like earlier. He had a smug look on his face. “Lookin’ for somethin?”

“Just for the Captain,” Emmy responded uncomfortably. She held her parcel close to her chest. “What are you doing?”

“I was gonna come see Hugh myself, actually. Wanted to ask him if he wanted to have a drink before bed.” 

Emmy felt a twinge in her belly. Something wasn’t right - and Archie filled up the doorway. She was cornered like a rabbit. 

“Well, he’s not here. So if you’d excuse me…”

Archie stepped aside to let Emmy out, which she did quickly. The interaction would have been weird but excusable if Archie didn’t start following her. She had no way to shake him, logically, without heading directly to her room. But she had to show Hugh the logs - and worse, she had left her lab unlocked. If she didn’t tell Hugh her plan, having the door unlocked became too much of a liability. This was a predicament. 

Emmy took a sharp turn away from her room. Archie continued to tail her. Emmy could feel every hair on her back stand up. Suddenly, her suit felt suffocating. If she didn’t know better she would rip her helmet off. 

Just as she reached the hallway where electrical was, Lucky stepped out of electrical and right into Emmy’s path. She gasped, and quickly gave Lucky a hug. 

“What the - “

“Lucky! Thank you so much for the, ah, rolls. I appreciate the thought so much!”

Archie did not enter the hall. Apparently, hearing them speak deterred him. Emmy felt a knot in her throat. 

“Okay? You’re welcome? Why are you hugging me though?”

Emmy took Lucky by the arm, and began walking next to him towards engines and sleeping quarters. “I need to tell you something. I’m looking for Hugh because Archie is being...suspicious.”

“Suspicious?”

“Look at these logs.” 

Emmy flicked her wrist, and her tablet woke up. She tabbed over to her log data and offered her arm to Lucky. She had edited it so the important stuff was separated from the filler. It no longer mattered where they were walking - something was going on. 

“That’s...impossible. How could he -”

“I know. There aren’t any...passageways or something that I don’t know about, are there?”

They paused their walking. They had made it to where Oakley’s tree and the sleeping quarters were. It smelled lovely over here from what little fresh air got into their suits. Like Earth. Lucky crossed his arms over his chest. 

“Passageways. Does this look like a haunted mansion to you?”

“Lucky,” she said sternly, “I’m being serious. Nobody knows this ship like you do.”

Lucky hummed. “No. We don’t have passageways. The only thing that connects other than the hallways would be the air vents, but I don’t think someone could fit in them. Ollie could - but he’s a baby. And why would he try to, anyway? First of all - that’s dangerous. And second of all, there’s an alien loose in the vents.” 

He was right. Everyone had been at that emergency meeting that morning. Everyone was well aware of the thing in the vents. Archie was stupid, but surely he wasn’t that stupid. 

“Something doesn’t add up,” Emmy said. She shook her head. “Something is happening and I don’t know what it is. I need to find Hugh.” 

“Evening, lads.” 

Lucky and Emmy both jumped. Archie was suddenly there, walking out of the hall from the reactor room. He still had that smug look on his face, and still wasn’t wearing his helmet. 

“Dude, Hugh said to keep our helmets on,” Lucky chided.

“Hugh isn’t here, is he?” 

Emmy found herself holding onto Lucky’s arm. They were cornered. Again. And how on Earth had Archie gotten here so fast? The blue spaceman began approaching them, and panic welled up in Emmy’s belly. Her fight or flight reflex kicked in.

“Personal space!” Lucky snapped. He pushed Archie back. “God, you’re such a fucking weirdo. You’re always doing shit like this. Can’t Emmy and I have a conversation without you sticking your fat fucking face in it? Jesus.” 

The harshness of Lucky’s words wiped that stupid look off Archie’s face, and he scoffed at them. He quickly shoved past them and into the sleeping quarters - and Emmy sighed. Lucky pried her hands off of his arms. 

“I don’t know, Em,” he said, shaking his head. “He’s just kind of like that. Maybe he is using the vents, maybe he’s secretly a ghost. I’m sure it’s nothing. You’ll probably look like an idiot if you show that to Hugh.”

Her fear morphed into disbelief. “What? But you agreed it doesn’t make sense!”

“It doesn’t! But the ship has also had a lot of technical issues today. Look...I’m sure you’re stressed out. Today has sucked. But you really should just sleep it off and try and chill out, alright? You’re freaking me out.” 

“Oh…” 

Lucky patted her on the shoulder. “Go to bed. We’ll see you tomorrow.” 

Emmy was alone, then, as Lucky ducked into the sleeping quarters. The ship felt alive around her, humming and vibrating. Maybe Lucky was right. Archie was a weirdo at the best of times, and the stress of losing a specimen had probably made her want to prove herself. With a heavy sigh, she dragged herself to her closet of a bedroom, and set about getting ready for bed.


	5. Chapter 4 Part II: Bonus Episode

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bonus chapter from one of da homies! Lucky is his sona and I thought it would be fun to have a guest writer, so here u go!

While Emmy was hunkering down in her bedroom, Lucky, Ollie, and Oakley were getting ready for bed in theirs. They slept in a large bunk room with a small recreational area that had become a cluster of thinly separated “rooms.” The big open space was cut up by dividers made of tension rods and curtains coupled with the dressers and lamps and unused beds that had been included in the bunking area. Seven “rooms” fit in total. Only seven because while Oakley had originally been given his own space, he’d taken down the divider between his room and Lucky’s so that they could push their beds together. The space was warm and filled with drawings on every kind of scrap paper available. They littered the desk, floor, and shelves. They were taped to the walls and the bed posts. Some were Lucky’s, but most were from Ollie, stealing scraps to draw on while his daddy worked all day and then refusing to ever part with them. Lucky never had the heart to throw them away, anyway. 

“Hey, Oakley,” Lucky started to speak, his fingers weaving through Oakley’s dense curls. He sat cross-legged on the bed behind Oakley, braiding his hair tightly to help protect it from a night without a shower and hairbrush. They could’ve taken a shower, but with an alien roaming _The Skeld,_ they didn't want to risk being so…. Exposed. 

“When you brought Emmy that food we saved, was she being weird?” 

Oakley hissed as Lucky tugged on a knot in his curls. “Not any weirder than usual.” He said, a shrug in his voice, though he held himself still so as not to disturb Ollie, who laid across his lap coloring on a piece of scrap paper on the bed. 

“She wasn’t acting…Jumpy? She was being so weird just now. She hugged me!”

Oakley shook his head lightly as Lucky dropped the finished, tied braid against his back. He leaned back against Lucky and put his hands on his belly again. “Not really. I might’ve just not noticed, but she seemed normal. A little tired, but normal. Why did she hug you?” 

“I’m not sure. She’s going to Hugh because she-” Lucky paused, and waited a moment. He had to lower his voice- anyone could listen in. He didn’t want to stir anything up with the other crewmates. “She thinks Archie’s up to something.” He whispered, voice low in Oakley’s ear as he did.   
Oakley pushed off and sat up, to look at Lucky. Lucky noticed how serious he looked, his chocolatey brown eyes nearly black under the shadow of his furrowed brow. “Why does she think that?”   
Uncomfortable with Oakley’s sudden change of tone, Lucky’s cheeks got warm as he tried to remember and explain. “Ummm, she said he like… Teleported? Like she said he kept getting places without tripping the sensors? And I mean, I guess he was being kind of a dick in the hallway. He got up in my face for no reason.” 

Oakley hummed in his throat, and stood. He scooped Ollie up, and kissed his little forehead. “I don’t like that.” He said, as he reached Ollie up and tucked him away in the hammock they’d hung for him over their bed. Ollie poked his face up, over the side, and puffed his cheeks up with a frown. “I don’t want to go to bed yet!” He fussed, as Oakley gently removed his glasses and pushed some of Ollie’s fluffy curls out of his face. Lucky chimed in, stretching out on the bed as Oakley gave Ollie the pink stuffed bear he liked to sleep with. 

“You have to go to bed, Oliver. Listen to your daddy.” Lucky chided. He pulled his own hair back out of his face and pulled the blanket over him. Once he was comfy, his mind wandered. He thought hard about his conversation with Emmy. About the alien wandering their halls. About his baby, Ollie, and what he could need in the coming crisis. He watched Oakley get the lights off and climb into bed, worry flooding him as he rested. 

“Do you think we’re gonna be okay?” Lucky asked, still staring as the last of the light faded from the room. 

“I think so. We just have to stay calm.” 

“Okay. You know, I shut Emmy down, but… I’d support her over Archie if it came down to it. I don’t think she’d lie about this. She’s taking it hard.” 

Oakley nodded. “Yeah. Me too.”


	6. In the Vents

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Emmy looks real bad.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> chapter SIIIIIIX!

Emmy woke up before the morning rendition of “Daisy Bell.” Her room was dark aside from the dim light the emergency lights around the edges of the room gave off. She stared up at the darkness, eyes burning, gathering her thoughts. She had no idea what time it was. Her whole self felt sore - it was as if she had run ten miles and done fifty situps the day before. She didn’t know why she was awake already. But since she was, her mind began to wander. What awaited her when the morning did finally come? She never did find Hugh or tell him what Archie was up to. That was assuming that Archie was, in fact, up to something. Lucky had a point when he said it would probably look bad if she brought it up. And looking bad was something Emmy could not handle. 

Emmy slipped out of bed. A shiver ran up her spine as the cold metal of the floor hit her feet. She pulled a hoodie off of the hook on the back of her door and slipped it on, before padding over to her small desk. It, like her bedside table, was cluttered with paperwork and pens. She also had a small succulent floating above a magnetic base, a tape dispenser that looked like an elephant, and a tiny plastic flamingo. She was a sucker for useless tchotchke, what could she say? As she sat down she sort of forgot what she went over there for to begin with. It wasn’t like it was time to work yet, and she didn’t have much in the way of entertainment. She regretted that fact, actually. 

In the middle of her tired pondering, she heard a noise in the ceiling above her. If her brain was processing correctly, it sounded like the metal in the ceiling was creaking under some significant weight. But that was stupid, right? If the specimen was in there there was no way it weighed enough to make it creak like that. 

But it didn’t stop. Heavy thuds and deep groaning filled her shoebox of a room. She felt frozen. Her body was paralyzed by her frightened animal brain. Something was above her. Or...maybe it was someone.

She didn’t have a weapon. Emmy had no reason to keep one in her room. The closest thing she had to a weapon was a pair of scissors in her pen cup. She managed to unfreeze herself enough to pick it up, and hold it defensively. If they came down…

The creaking stopped. She focused her eyes on the vent above. It was positioned over her bed, right where her head would be. 

Time slugged by. It was as if life slowed itself down so she could see it frame by frame. She expected something horrible to happen and her mind raced with possibilities. Someone could be watching her bed, waiting for her to go and lie down again. Her sample could be preparing to fall onto her pillow. Hell, maybe the goddamn Boogeyman was there to snatch her up and eat her. She had no clue! 

Before she knew it, “Daisy Bell” began playing. The creaking did not return. She hadn’t moved or even really blinked since she woke up - and she didn’t feel the passage of time. It was like she had briefly winked out of existence, only to fizzle back in at the call of morning. The song snapped her out of her daze, and carefully she set the scissors back on her desk. Emmy felt sicker than usual. Nausea always came for her in the early hours, but not like this. Her head felt like it was swimming. It took her longer than she’d care to admit to get to her feet, and when she did she could feel the blood rush to her head. 

There was no way she could work like this. 

Emmy picked up her blanket and wrapped it around her shoulders. It was one of the few things she had brought from home; it was wonderfully soft, perfectly sized, and covered in dogs wearing various Christmas attire. Her favorite was the little weiner dog in a scarf. She slipped on some fuzzy socks with grey and white stripes on them and headed for the cafeteria. 

Her walk to the cafe was quiet. The others were likely still getting ready for the day, so she saw no one as she moved through storage. She paused at the door to Admin. 

It wouldn’t hurt to look, would it? 

Emmy checked her surroundings with a quick glance back and forth before stepping inside. The automatic lights flickered on, and she squinted against them. She had left her glasses in her room like an idiot, so not only was the light giving her a headache, but the room was also somewhat of a blur. She stepped over to the far side of the admin table, swiped her card, and checked the logs. 

Archie had pinged the lower East hallway. Once two hours ago - approximately when Emmy had woken up - and once half an hour ago. No other pings. Just the East hallway. 

It couldn’t be real. Emmy felt her soul trying to escape from her fucking body - this could not be real. There was no way - 

Her thoughts were interrupted by screaming. Emmy didn’t think - she just ran. It was coming from the upper East hallway, which was the easiest way to get from sleeping quarters to the cafeteria. Her blanket flew off her shoulders as she sprinted for it - and she skipped to an ungraceful stop when she reached the doorway. 

The scene was difficult to process at first. Purple and Red had been walking together, clearly - and Yellow must have run ahead of them. The door to Emmy’s lab was wide open, and there were…

...specimens? All over the fucking place. Broke tubes of purple fluid, torn open blood bags, pieces of rock. All over the floor. It was absolutely destroyed. And in the mess, Yellow was lying on his back unconscious. He must’ve slipped and smacked his head on the floor. Emmy stepped over him and into her lab, surveying with a great deal of horror the damage that had been done. Years - literal, actual years worth of supplies had been torn apart. And worse - her computer had a long metal rod shoved into the screen. The filing cabinet with her medical files had been ransacked. She fingered through the mess to see what had been taken or destroyed...and found the only thing missing was Archie’s medical records. 

“Go hit the emergency meeting button,” Emmy said, voice low and devoid of emotion. She stared at her filing cabinet as though she were watching a predator stalk her. 

“What?” Margo hissed, “Shouldn’t you be - “

“Go hit the emergency meeting button _NOW, MARGO!”_

Orla and Margo made a run for it. Emmy was sure it was her imagination, but as they ran she was sure she could hear that clanging in the vents again. She didn’t acknowledge it and instead woke up her tablet. She checked her files - and sighed. Whoever did this wasn’t smart enough to think to worry about her tablet. All of her files and all of her research were backed up onto it. Even her medical records - better, even Archie’s medical records. 

Behind her, Jasper groaned. 

“Don’t move,” Emmy said quietly. “You hit your head and I don’t know if you have a concussion yet.” 

“Is this blood?”

“It isn’t yours. Well - some of it might be, but not because you hurt yourself. Someone slashed our blood bags…”

“Nasty,” Jasper hissed. Despite her warnings, he sat himself up with a groan. He rubbed the back of his head. “Who trashed your lab?”

“I don’t know.”

“Aren’t you and Hugh the only ones with keys?”

“Yes.”

“So...why’d you trash your own lab?”

Emmy scoffed. “I didn’t, you idiot. Why would I ruin my own life like that?”

Jasper shrugged. “People do crazy things, man. Especially in space and especially after messing up really bad. And, I mean, you let a freaky alien loose in the ship…” 

The emergency meeting button was hit, then. Emmy put her tablet to sleep and pulled Jasper to his feet, walking him slowly back to the cafeteria. Orla and Margo were standing nervously together, eying Jasper and Emmy as if they were slow-approaching predators. Emmy helped Jasper sit down, but didn’t sit herself. A headache throbbed behind her eye. 

“What the fuck is going on?”

Lucky, Ollie, and Oakley were the next three to enter the room. Clearly they all had been in the process of getting a shower. Ollie was in nothing but a towel ( it was green, and there was a cute froggy hood over his head ), Oakley was in his boxers, and Lucky was in a bathrobe covered in kitty paws. His hair was up in a towel. 

“Someone sabotaged my lab,” Emmy said flatly. “Our blood bags were slashed, my files were messed with, and someone shoved a piece of metal through my computer screen.” 

“That’s not very nice,” Ollie said quietly. He tugged on Oakley’s arm, and was immediately picked up by him. He wrapped his little arms around Oakley’s neck, and buried his little face in his fluffy hair. God - next to each other, there was no question that was his daddy. It would’ve warmed Emmy’s cold, wretched heart if she wasn’t currently spiraling into a pit of despair. 

“Oh,” Lucky said. He rubbed the back of his neck. “Ouch. Sorry about that.”

“Why wasn’t your lab locked?” Oakley asked. He sat down with Ollie still in his arms, and Lucky sat beside him. Emmy could see goosebumps on their skin. She felt guilty. “Or...if it was, how did they get in?”

Oh boy. Emmy knew this was going to look bad. 

“I left it unlocked last night in case someone found the organism and needed supplies.” 

As that nugget of information settled over the room, Ezra, Hugh, Hazel, and Archie filed in. They gathered around the table, albeit with a great deal of grumpiness, and Hugh cleared his throat to speak. 

“What’s going on?” Hugh said through a yawn. He wasn’t dressed yet. He was in sleeping shorts and a tight grey tshirt. His silky hair was a mess about his face when it wasn’t tied up like it usually was. He looked like he hadn’t slept a wink. “Little early for a ship-wide emergency, eh?”

“Someone broke into Emmy’s lab,” Jasper said from his seat at the table. He couldn’t stop rubbing the sore spot on the back of his head. “She left it unlocked and someone went in and trashed it.”

Hugh’s face went from tired and mildly amused to grave in a matter of seconds. “You... _what?”_

Emmy couldn’t even begin to defend herself. Hugh laid into her right away. 

“Even after the events of yesterday, you left your lab _unlocked?!_ Are you _out_ of your _mind?!”_

“I - if someone found the organism during the night - “

“They could call an emergency meeting! Of all the _stupid_ , irresponsible things - and from _you_ of all people!” 

Emmy felt a mixture of shame and disbelief start to brew in her belly. She wanted to cry. She should’ve found Hugh last night, defying what Lucky suggested. Then they wouldn’t be here - and she wouldn’t look so damn stupid. 

“Sounds like maybe she wanted something like this to happen.” It was Archie who piped up, though he looked incredibly disinterested in the conversation. He was looking at his nails. Unlike the rest of them, Archie was dressed for the day. Emmy thought that was odd. “For...attention, or something.”

“Don’t be ridiculous!” Emmy snapped. She placed her palms on the table. “Why on Earth would I do that?”

“Yeah, no, like...why would she destroy her own stuff?” Lucky suggested. “Also, something was really bothering her last night. She tried to talk to me about it but I thought it was off base. I guess I was wrong - we can see that now because Emmy wouldn't break stuff ONLY she can use."

“Why not? It would be the perfect crime - we wouldn’t suspect her because it doesn’t make sense. Right?”

Hard logic to disagree with, in Archie’s mind. He shrugged, as though this conversation meant nothing. “I’m just saying. It could be a grab for sympathy since she royally fucked up yesterday.”

Orla piped up, “Emmy isn’t the attention-seeking type. She hates attention. And us. Well - not us specifically. She’s a grumpy ol’ cunt! Why would she ask for our attention?” 

“That’s just it, though, innit? It doesn’t make sense, so she could get away with blaming anyone else.”

“Emmy isn’t blaming anyone else,” Oakley said, eyes narrowed. “She just stated what happened. Honestly - it’s kind of weird you’re being such a jackass to her right off the bat.”

“It is kind of weird, babe,” Hazel added. She still had her hair under a silk scarf, and her jammies were a matchy set of blue covered in little rain clouds. “I know you’re a grump in the morning but this is a bit much.”

“I find it odd that you’re so hot to accuse me of malintent, when the only file that was missing from my records was yours.” 

That filled the room up with palpable tension. All eyes went to Archie, who now looked invested in the conversation.

“Well that’s concerning,” he snorted. “Maybe you threw it into the airlock so you wouldn’t be able to properly take care of me!”

“Okay, that’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard,” Margo said through a wry laugh. “She’s still a doctor. And your blood type is on your ID.” 

Something hit Emmy just then. She had been very preoccupied yesterday, so she let the crew scan themselves rather than doing each one herself. It was easy enough - just step into the scanner and stand still, then the info was sent to her tablet. Quickly, Emmy opened her tablet and switched over to the scan files. Everyone had one from yesterday - except Archie and Hazel. That wasn’t that weird - sometimes people didn’t feel like doing it - but with everything going on that smelled suspicious. 

“You didn’t scan in yesterday!” Emmy yelled. She held up her tablet. “Everyone but Hazel and Archie scanned in yesterday. Why did you skip?”

“I forgot,” was Hazel’s excuse. 

“I forgot because I was busy with Hazel,” was Archie’s. Emmy scowled. 

“I find that suspicious. I also find it suspicious you have been moving around the ship without pinging any sensors. Do you have any explanation for that?” 

“What? Do you have proof of that?”

She brought up her screenshots, and offered the tablet to Oakley to pass around. “I asked Lucky if that was even possible last night and he said no, unless you were moving around in the vents. I was trying to find you last night, captain, to show you this and also explain why I was leaving my lab unlocked. Additionally, Archie was following me uncomfortably closely last night as I was trying to find you.”

“And he was weirdly aggro when he found me and Emmy talking,” Lucky added. It suddenly made sense to him. She had been acting like a freak because Archie was acting like a weirdo. But like - an actual weirdo. “He was all up in my personal space and being kind of fucky.”

“Is that true?” Hugh asked. Archie scoffed. 

“So what? I’m kind of into her whole ‘anti-social megabitch’ act.”

Hazel had the saddest look on her face. She clearly felt betrayed, and while Emmy felt for her, she did wonder how she hadn’t seen something like this coming. 

“Is that why you were in the vent above my bed this morning?”

Archie laughed, out loud. “I was asleep this morning. Hazel and I were up all night.”

“Don’t be gross, Archie…”

Hugh rubbed his face. “That’s enough. Emmy, clean up your lab and let me know if you need anything. The rest of you, back to quarters. We’re not working today. Stick together in pairs, you know the drill. Take some food back with you. Hazel, Archie - my office.” 

That was the end of the meeting. Hugh disappeared with Archie and Hazel in tow. Emmy didn’t feel at all satisfied. Nobody really acknowledged how fucking weird this all was. 

As the others began to peel off, Lucky stopped Emmy. He actually looked concerned for her, for once.

“I’m sorry I said you were off base,” he said quietly. “I didn’t realize…” 

All she could do was shrug. She felt defeated in a way she had never felt before. “It’s alright. I appreciate you standing up for me. Stay safe, alright?”

“Emmy - “

But she was already heading into her lab. The door hissed shut behind her


	7. Slayer

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It begins.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for not posting yesterday! I hope the wait was worthwhile!

“Emmy!”

Lucky pounded his fist against the closed lab door. “Emmy, this is stupid! Hugh said to stay in pairs, and if you don’t, you’re gonna look suspicious!”

Emmy sighed as she picked up the biohazard kit up off the floor. It hadn’t been broken into, thankfully, which meant she could actually clean up the mess on her floor. It was going to be quite a project, given how determined whoever did this was to ruin her life. Well...she had an idea of who it was. But this was too malicious to be some elaborate prank. Maybe the organism had gotten bigger. Maybe it was sentient enough to understand the consequences of destroying the lab. Who knew? 

“Emmy, come on! Let me in.”

“It is a biohazard in here,” Emmy shot back. She began to pour a white powder on the liquid, which instantly began absorbing it. “I don’t want you to hurt yourself by accident. Besides - I’ll be fine on my own…”

“This isn’t about you being fine,” Lucky said in exasperation. He pressed his helmet against the door. “This is about you breaking the rules and looking suspicious. Come on, Em - let me in. I’ll stay out of your way!”

“If this is an attempt to atone for not believing me last night, I assure you it's not necessary. I looked like a lunatic.”

Lucky growled in frustration, and banged his fist against the door again. “Come on! I’ll sit on the exam table. Just...you shouldn’t be alone right now. It isn’t safe.” 

That gave Emmy pause. Lucky seemed to be genuinely concerned for her, which...was not something she had experienced before. He had a point, too. She was just being stubborn. With a sigh, she stepped carefully over to the door and allowed it to open. “Sit on the table. I don’t want you slipping and hurting yourself.” 

Emmy offered Lucky a hand, which he took after a second of pause. She was very gentle as she led him to the table, careful to make sure he avoided any spills or broken glass. Once he was safely beside the exam table, she relocked the door and went back to cleaning. Lucky clambered onto the table and sat cross legged, his hands going out behind him for support. Emmy could see her reflection in his visor - and if she squinted hard enough, she could see Lucky’s nervous expression. She felt a twinge of guilt in her belly. This wasn’t a time to be divisive. Something extraordinarily crazy was happening. Lives were at stake. And Lucky had the kindness and foresight to know he should stick with her. 

Emmy began to carefully pick up the shards of glass off the floor and drop it into a bag. The material was thick enough that it wouldn’t tear, which was nice. 

“That meeting was crazy,” Lucky said after a period of silence. 

Emmy shrugged, “It was also unproductive. I suppose I didn’t have a plan for what to do, but a verbal scolding from Hugh doesn’t feel like enough. Something is amiss.”

“Yeah...Archie is being really sus.”

“You can say that again...I just don’t understand what drove him to do this. We’ve never gotten along, but I’ve never done anything to earn his ire. Or - I don’t think I did. Who knows.”

Lucky gave a bit of a chuckle, “Well, you are pretty good at being full of yourself and kind of an asshole.” 

“I don’t think that’s enough motivation to pull this kind of stunt, though…”

Silence filled up the room again. Emmy was making decent headway on the mess, but Lucky must have felt it was taking too long, because he grabbed a few extra supplies from the box and began mopping up the spilled blood and throwing away the slashed blood bags. Emmy wanted to protest - but Lucky was a reasonably responsible adult. The help was appreciated. Time went by a little faster with help, and when Lucky started up a conversation about their lives back on Earth, Emmy actually found herself enjoying spending time with him. Emmy had grown up in a bad household with a mother who didn’t know how to be a mother, and Lucky had grown up with a ton of siblings in a house full of witches. They were tentative, but they gave each other a little taste of the difficult lives they had shared. Enough to make them have a better understanding of each other, at least.

“I don’t want to pry,” Emmy said as she began to clean up her paperwork, “But...Oakley is Ollie’s father, right?”

“I don’t want to talk about that.” 

Emmy knew she was right. And she knew that Lucky knew that she knew. But it didn’t matter. Sometimes being right wasn’t the biggest priority; or, that’s what she told herself in this case. Whether she really believed that or not remained to be seen. 

It wasn’t until a few hours of cleaning later that anything else happened. Emmy and Lucky were taking a break, munching on some granola Emmy had stashed in the lab when she decided to check on everyone’s vitals. It wasn’t like she expected anything to be different - she was just assuring herself everything was fine outside. 

But everything wasn’t fine. 

Archie had flatlined. 

“Lucky, get your helmet on,” she said. Her voice was barely above a whisper.

“What? Why? And why are you whispering?”

Emmy couldn’t process. She felt like her head was spinning. She couldn’t feel her arms or legs as she hopped off her desk and stepped over, showing Lucky the tablet screen. 

“Oh my god. Is that - “

“Maybe it...maybe the reading is wrong.” 

She restarted her tablet. It was a fairly quick process - but even so, every second it was working to restart felt like a million years. When it came back online, the same thing was displayed. Ten healthy heartbeats - and one flatline. 

“What...what does…”

“He’s dead,” Emmy whispered. She could hardly take a breath. “We...we have to…”

“I need to get to my son!”

“Lucky, wait - “

But he was already bolting out the door. She could hear Lucky clanging down the hallway, calling for Oliver. She twisted her helmet on and took off after him. The emergency button was the last thing on her mind. She had to make sure Lucky - and, everyone else, really - was safe. She was just a few lengths behind Lucky, so she could see the blur of cyan as he sprinted. 

When Emmy caught up to Lucky, he was swiping his ID card too fast to get into the sleeping quarters. Emmy could hear him panting and wheezing, presumably from panic. She shoved him out of the way, and swiped her ID card. 

The door hissed open. Lucky shoved her out of the way and ran inside.

 _“Ollie! Oakley!”_

The room was quiet. But not uncomfortably so - Oliver poked his little head out from behind the curtain of their room. “Daddy?”

Lucky ran over and scooped up his son, audibly beginning to cry as he hugged him. He flipped his visor up and kissed his son’s little face. Oakley stepped out a second later and flipped his visor up. 

“What’s going on?” Oliver asked. He sounded scared - his little voice shook as he tried to get his father to stop blubbering. “Are you okay?”

“Honey?” Oakley said. He stepped closer and hugged Lucky. The attention of the rest of the crew had been drawn at this point, and they all began crowding around the little family, murmuring. “Honey - what’s going on?”

“Ask Em - I can’t -” 

“Archie has…” Emmy began. A knot formed in her throat, and she swallowed hard. “Archie has flatlined. I don’t know where he is on the ship.” 

“Does that mean…?” Margo began. She was standing next to Orla, and as the realization of what that meant dawned on them, they drew together. Orla wrapped her arms around Margo’s arm. “You can’t be…”

“Is everyone accounted for?” Emmy was trying to stay cool. Hugh wasn’t in the room so she had to act rationally. “Sound off.”

“Red.”

“Orange…”

“Yellow.”

“Green.”

“Cyan...and Ollie…”

“Purple.” 

“Pink.”

No Hugh. No Hazel. No Archie. The only three who hadn’t gone to sleeping quarters were unaccounted for, and one of them was dead. With a great deal of fear, Emmy raised her arm to look at her tablet again. 

Still just Archie. That was a good sign. 

“We’re going to move in a group and find the others,” Emmy began flatly. She switched her tablet off. “Lucky and Ollie, stay in the middle of the group. Everyone else, file around them, and after me. Don’t take your helmets off, and don’t stray.” 

There was a collective murmur of agreement, and as helmets hissed and visors went down, they began their slow sweep of the ship. The first place they checked was the bathroom, which was right across from sleeping quarters. They could all hear crying from outside - so Emmy, Margo, and Orla stepped inside to check.

Hazel was on the floor, back against the wall. Her makeup was running down her face.

“Hi guys,” she said miserably, “Archie _dumped me._ ”

They didn’t know how to say it to her. Orla stepped over and sank down beside her, hugging her from the side. “Aye, that’s rough. I’m sorry, love.” 

“I thought he loved me…”

“Men are trash,” Margo said, tutting in disapproval. Emmy admired their ability to act normal given the circumstances. “You’ll be okay, _bonita._ ” 

Orla waved Emmy and Margo off with a hand. “I can handle this. You guys keep going. We’ll have a wee chat, alright? Meet up later.” 

“I don’t think that’s - “

“ _Perfecto,_ Orla. Meet us in the cafe when you’re ready.” 

Margo took Emmy by the arm and led her back out. The assembled crew seemed confused by the lack of Orla and whoever had been crying. Margo addressed the crowd, “No worries. Hazel got dumped. So Orla is hanging back. They’ll be alright.” 

The crew seemed too weary and on edge to argue. So they didn’t - and the journey continued. 

His body was near comms. When Emmy saw it, she quickly ordered the group to hang back. The sight was probably the most gruesome thing she had ever seen - blood and sinew splattered the walls. Bits of tissue and bones coated the floor in a fine layer of gore, and the body itself had been torn apart. The head was missing - as in, completely so. There was no evidence as to where it had gone. The torso was so badly torn into, the vital organs looked like a red, chunky soup stewing in the chest cavity. The ribs had been pulverised. There was a spinal column sticking out where the top half of Archie’s body should have been, jutting out in the most grotesque fashion imaginable. He had, quite literally, torn in half. 

She felt sick. Even seeing simulated plasma wounds hadn’t been this bad. This was...this was…

Emmy had just enough time to step over to the side and flip up her visor before violently retching on the floor. 

Oakley had the misfortune of being the first one to creep up to see what was going on. He gasped audibly. 

“Holy shit!”

“Don’t touch anything,” Emmy ordered horsely, “Take the others to the cafe _now._ ” 

“Emmy - is that -”

“Oakley we don’t have time for this! Take them!” 

Oakley shuffled off, and Emmy could hear the clanging of boots on the metal floor as the crew headed for the cafeteria. Once her head stopped spinning, she straightened and fixed her helmet. The smell of bile and mutilated flesh stuck in her nostrils. It was like gargling pennies, burnt hair, and feces. 

She hobbled to admin. 

Emmy didn’t want to know. 

She swiped her ID card on the far end of the table. 

God fucking damnit, she didn’t want to know. 

“No…”

The logs were blank. She scrolled frantically, pounded in filters, searched by names.

Nothing. The logs were wiped. 

Suddenly, the alarms for the emergency meeting button went off. 

Emmy ran as fast as her feet would carry her.


	8. Adrift

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The worst has come to fruition.

When Emmy entered the cafe, it was chaotic. Oakley had clearly revealed some of what he had seen - or that’s what Emmy guessed, based on how everyone was acting. She had never seen such anxious looking people. Not that she could blame them; it wasn’t every day a crewmate you’ve known for years ripped in actual half. Regardless of how hardy her stomach was, she was certain that image - and the smell - would never leave her memory. 

“What’s going on?”

It was Hugh. He entered from the Western hallway - the hall that led to the lab. Emmy felt a wash of relief as he entered the room unscathed. She sank into a seat at the center table. “We’ve had a casualty. Archie is dead.”

“Oh God,” Hugh said. He shook his head, and crossed himself. “Do we know…?”

“I have no idea,” Emmy said mournfully. She popped her visor up to rub her face. She, like the others, was drenched in sweat. Her red hair stuck to her face in ugly tendrils. She twirled a strand around her finger as she tried to process. “The organism...never showed any ability to do anything like that. The injuries...captain, it looked like a wild animal got into the ship.” 

“I see…”

“I haven’t gotten a good look at him. I could perform an autopsy to confirm, but...I don’t know what could’ve done it.” 

“Not to be rude,” Magro cut in, “But it had to be a person, right?” 

Emmy blinked. A stiff silence loomed over the crew as she paused and considered. 

“I...don’t think any of us are capable of doing that kind of damage. His innards were…”

Emmy cast a glance toward Lucky, who was rocking his son and trying to soothe him. He gave an approving nod as he covered the little boy’s ears. Emmy felt a sick pit in her stomach. 

“Liquified. It looked like beef stew in there. His ribs were in pieces. And the upper part of his torso was gone.” 

Jasper, on the other end of the table, groaned and gripped his helmet. The gorey details were a lot, clearly. Emmy frowned. 

“That can’t be good.” 

Hugh’s response was weirdly calm. But he was like that - always level-headed in horrific situations. That’s why he was captain. Hugh began to address the room with a moving, calming speech. Emmy tuned it out. As much as she admired her captain and hoped for the best, things were too unstable to just be brushed away with some clever words in her opinion. The situation was dire. As he spoke, Emmy turned on her tablet and...with a great deal of hesitation, checked vitals again. She was initially lulled into security as she glanced over it quickly - but when she actually processed…

Orla was gone.

Panic began to set in. Emmy quickly shut her tablet off. To reset it, of course. She couldn’t handle the truth. 

Before she could restart it, though, the room went dark. Emergency red lights began rolling, and the alarms blared. The red light barely cut through the thick darkness now enshrouding the cafeteria, but the startled screaming of her crew certainly cut the silence. 

“Remain calm!” Hugh yelled. “What’s going on?!”

_“Attention. Attention. All crew members, we are currently experiencing a critical malfunction in O2. Please take emergency plan gamma procedures. Attention. Attention. All crew members - we are currently experiencing a critical malfunction in O2. Please take - “_

Oakley and Lucky took off for the nearest branch of O2. The others made it for admin, where the secondary switch for O2 was. Much like the reactor, it took two people to fix a problem like this. How could this be happening? 

Emmy felt the air thinning. Her compromised lungs always burned extra bad when the oxygen in her environment died. She pushed past Hugh to run for the bathroom - away from the emergency. Now was the time to see what was going on. Her back began to tighten and ache as she struggled to catch her breath, but she pushed past it to make it to the bathroom. She kicked the door open with a heavy boot, and flicked on her shoulder flashlight. 

“Oh _GOD!”_

Just like Archie, Orla was ripped apart. Her corpse was severed at the waist, but her spine stuck upwards like a snake. She could see exposed spinal cord barely holding the columns in place. The floor and walls were plastered with gore. She rushed over to check for...god, she didn’t even know. Orla’s blood soaked into her knees and gloves as she tried to find any source of injury. She couldn’t see plasma-scouring, so it couldn’t be that. The cut was almost surgical, but there were enough jagged edges that it couldn’t be true. The shakiness of her flashlight paired with the emergency lights and alarms made it hard to make anything out. Emmy got to her feet and ran out of the bathroom, taking off for the lower West hallway. She had to make it to the Admin table - she just knew it.   
Emmy was stopped by something horrific. 

The doors to Comms kept bouncing open as they tried to hiss shut. Blocking them was the lower half of a white-suited torso. 

Hazel. 

Just as Emmy brought her hands up to her face in horror, the lights turned back on, and the emergency ended. She gasped and coughed as fresh oxygen began flooding her lungs again - she pressed her helmet against the nearest wall as her head spun. 

“Oh my god! Emmy, what did you do?!” 

“Wha - “

Hugh was tackling her before she could respond. A hairline crack formed on her helmet visor as it cracked against the ground, and she cried out. Hugh pressed his knee into her upper back, and held her arms behind her. 

With her face squished against the floor, she could barely look up. But she could see Lucky and Oakley huddled together, looking terrified. 

“Someone go open an airlock!” Hugh demanded.

No…no, what?

“Wha - what’s - “

“The organism must have taken over Emmy. We have to launch her into space!”

“Orla died! I ran to go - “

“Shut up, parasite!”

Emmy’s eyes welled up with fat tears. She couldn’t breathe. This couldn’t be happening.

“Captain, this is insane!” Lucky yelled, “You also didn’t head for O2! And you were unaccounted for until - “

“She’s the only one with motive and opportunity!”

“What about Archie? She couldn’t have -” Oakley tried to interject. Hugh waved him off. 

“Jasper - help me get her up!” 

Jasper didn’t question his captain. Before Emmy or anyone else could react, she was being slung over their shoulders. She was too dazed to effectively fight back after being slammed to the ground that hard. But she tried - she struggled against their hold.

“This is crazy! I couldn’t have - Hugh, _please!_ My suit only has twenty minutes of oxygen!”

“Should have thought of that before you murdered my crew, parasite!”

It was dizzying how quickly Hugh and the others turned on her. She could hear Lucky, Oakley, and Margo arguing about it. Margo was distraught, screaming about how Emmy must have killed her fucking girlfiend. She must have. The fucking bitch killed Orla. 

Emmy yelled as she was thrown into the airlock beside shields. Hugh and Jasper had stepped over Archie’s corpse to get her here, which was disgusting on its own. The door slammed shut behind her, and Emmy scrambled to her feet. She slammed her fists against the door. The freezing cold of space was already eating at her suit. 

_“Please!”_ she screamed, banging and banging in desperate hope to be let out, _“Please don’t do this! I’m not infected! We don’t even know if it CAN infect!”_

Hugh removed his helmet. He had the coldest, cruelest look she had ever seen on a human being. He put his hand on the lever that would throw her out into space. 

“Tell that to the void.” 

And with no further warning, he pulled the lever. The door blocking Emmy from space was thrown open, and the pressure ripped her out of the room and slingshotted her into the blackness around them. She screamed - clawing at air to try and get back to the door that was slowly shrinking away as she drifted into a huge hunk of space rock. 

The force from being expelled at that speed smashed her against the rock so hard, she instantly winked out of consciousness.


	9. On Our Own

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Things don't go as planned.

When she came to, all she could see were stars. 

It was beautiful. The universe went on forever - endless waves of thick blackness, dotted with light. Asteroids drifted around her like giant fish in an invisible stream, pulled by gravity. The ship seemed so far away. It was a faint gray dot now. The lights from the windows were no longer visible. Her back was against the hunk of rock she had collided with, so it was like she was laying on a craggy couch as she watched her only chance at salvation sink away into the blackness of space. Every breath she took expelled tendrils of white fog. Her suit kept her from freezing to death instantly, but it wasn’t built for long expeditions outside. Her HUD blinked red, but the hairline crack in her visor made it impossible to see what the exact amount of time was left before her oxygen ran out. It didn’t turn red until it hit 10, though, so she had an idea that her fate was closing in. 

What a way to go. Her throat felt tight. Tears stung her eyes. 

Emmy couldn’t believe how quickly Hugh had turned on her. She thought they had been friends. She remembered training with him fondly; he had been her partner during environment training. They had learned to walk in zero gravity together. He had come to it more naturally than she had. There were many small moments where he held onto her wrists and they danced across the floor of the zero gravity chamber, allowing momentum to carry them from one side of the room to the next. The best thing she could remember was one day, the person in charge of them had left for an extended period of time and all of the trainees threw themselves into the air. They drifted and swam through open air, laughing and slamming into each other. It didn’t feel like training, then. It felt like fun. 

And Lucky. He had tried to prevent this. She had been too hard on him, and she regretted that now. She would die without getting to apologize. Would Lucky remember her fondly? Or would she be just another dead coworker? She didn’t understand why it mattered to her. Maybe they had been friends, once. When they were dumb teenagers in training, they had snuck out sometimes to go eat things in the kitchen and laugh about boys. Maybe Emmy had stolen a few glances too many, and gotten scared. Maybe Lucky’s messing around got under her skin. Maybe she just wished him the best. And maybe Lucky felt like the closest thing to a best friend she had ever had, before it all went down the drain those last few stretches on Earth. 

Emmy let out a shaky breath. She could see frost beginning to edge onto her visor. She couldn’t be sure, but the timer on the lower left of her screen looked like it said five minutes of oxygen left. 

Was this really it? Would she really suffocate out in open space like this? 

Emmy shut her eyes. The slow movement of the rock she was on was soothing, almost. 

She didn’t know how much time had passed. Maybe she drifted away like she used to when things got too rough, floating off to some odd crevice in her mind. But she was jolted out of it by a sudden flash of blinding light, and then something grabbing her. 

Lucky. 

He had a line attached to the lower deck of the ship, where all the engineering and environment gear lived. He was wrapping his big arms around her, and faintly she could hear him yell at his radio to pull him back in. 

It was like a scene out of a movie. 

Two little astronauts, floating amid an asteroid cloud, being pulled slowly back to a giant ship. It was slow going, and Emmy began to gasp and wheeze as her oxygen kept dipping. She had a minute left; the numbers ticked down her life by the second. Lucky squeezed her tightly. 

When the door shut behind them, the room began to pressurize and decontaminate them. White stuff hissed out of holes in the walls, and Lucky twisted Emmy’s helmet off and threw it aside. Fresh air hit her lungs as she took a deep, deep gasp. She rolled onto her hands and knees and began to cough her lungs out. Lucky patted her back, reassuring her it was okay, she was okay. After a few seconds of coughing and wheezing, Emmy threw her arms around Lucky’s neck.

 _“Thank you,”_ she sobbed, _“Thank you for saving me.”_

Lucky hugged her back, nice and tight. Seeing Emmy’s blue lips and dark eyes had shown him a future he couldn’t imagine coming true. She had looked like a corpse...and he didn’t want to see another one of those. “Always. I know it couldn’t be you - you’re not…”

“Thank you.”

Emmy looked up a little, tears pouring from her eyes. The heat of them rolling down her cold cheeks felt immaculate. She could see Margo, Oakley and Ollie suited up behind them. 

“What’s...going on?”

“We’re working together,” Oakley said evenly. He was trying to stay calm, but Emmy got the sense that he was very afraid. It was okay - she was too. “We’re going to go back in there and try and reason with them.”

“What happened after they ejected me?”

“Hugh stormed off,” Margo replied. “Jasper and Ezra followed.” 

“I think Hugh is going to kill them,” Emmy said quietly. God, her body hurt. She felt like she hadn’t slept in ten years. “We have...to do something.” 

Lucky slowly started to get up. He slipped his arms under Emmy’s to help her up, and she appreciated the help. Her legs felt like jelly. When she was on her feet, it took her a moment to feel comfortable standing alone. When she could do it, Lucky patted her on the back. 

“Come on,” Lucky said softly. “Let’s do this.” 

The four of them ( plus Ollie ) went through the second stage of decontamination, and then they were inside again. It felt like stepping into a giant wasp nest, only these wasps were primed to rip your throat out, and hiding somewhere. They kept Ollie in the middle and walked with two facing forward, and two facing behind. 

No surprises. 

They went up from the lower deck and into the cafe. From there, they began the terrifying walk to the eastern hallway. Hugh’s office was between weapons and navigation, and there was a silent agreement between them all that that was where they had to be. Horror gripped the group as they inched forward to the door. 

Emmy hadn’t lost her ID card. She pulled it out with a shaky hand.

“Margo?” she said softly, “I’m sorry about Orla. I promise I didn’t - “

“I know,” Margo replied quietly. She nodded, and sighed. “I know.” 

“Lucky?”

“Yeah, Em?”

“Stand back.” 

With icy fear in her heart, she pressed her ID against the pad. The light turned green, and the doors opened to a dark office. 

She could see something moving in the darkness. 

“Come out, Hugh,” Emmy said. Her voice cracked, so she cleared her throat. “You’re sick, and I can help you.” 

Nothing. Emmy turned, and pulled the flashlight off of Oakley’s chest. She flicked it on - and flinched. Ezra and Jasper were pasted against the walls and floors. Cut in half, just like the others, but so much gorier. It looked like a crockpot had exploded. 

“Hugh!” she repeated tearfully, “Come on, Hughy - let us help you!” 

She stepped into the door frame, and the second she was in view, a long fleshy tendril snapped out from the darkness and shoved itself into her right eye. She went down like a sack of potatoes, and the group assembled behind her screamed. Margo pulled a sidearm off of her belt and aimed it into the room, firing blindly. The flashlight fell to the side, but it cast a wide enough angle that they could see him. Hugh was mangled, split in half by a gurgling maw of impossibly sharp teeth and a fat, pointed tongue. The slice of teeth went from the left corner of his mouth, down the shoulder, and to the opposite hip. Little white tendrils poured out of his eyes, making them bulge out like fish eyes. His face was bloody, his nose was bleeding. More tendrils leaked out of his nose like mycelia. His arms were wrenched at horrific angles. His knees bent inwards. Tendrils were thick coming out of his mouth; they wrenched it open, and filled it up. They were finer, and white like silk aside from the blood spatter. Even though she was blind now - her left eye took in the absolute horror before her. 

The tendril in her eye yanked back hard - so hard, in fact, her eye went with it. 

Shock hit her instantly. She didn’t even feel the tendril come back four round two. Two thick tendrils slammed into her sides and began dragging her across the floor. Whatever Hugh was now didn’t seem to care about dragging her through the mess. Her hair fanned out like a mophead and smeared blood, sinew, and bone across the blue carpet. 

She got lucky. Margo landed a hit into one of Hugh’s tendrils. They both retracted into his maw, leaving blood and drool behind. Margo sprinted in and grabbed Emmy under the arms and dragged her out of the room. Lucky had ripped the wiring out of the wall, and was - with those steady hands of his - rewiring the door to permalock. 

“Done! We need to get to the dropship, now!”

That was the last thing she registered. Margo threw her over her shoulder and they all started running for the lower decks. If she had been of sound mind, maybe she would have begged for a medical kit from her lab, or maybe her research. Maybe she would have asked them to not let her die like this. Maybe she would beg them to dump her and leave her body for Hugh, and escape while he gorged. 

But instead she was silent. Her only eye watched her blood pour down Margo’s uniform. The purple would mask the brightness, probably. That seemed funny to her, as her head began clouding. 

The stairs felt like a hammer against her skull. There were so many to get to the bottom of the ship. And then there were more to get inside their tiny dropship. 

She could see Hugh, just faintly, running down after them. He must have taken the vents. 

Emmy was thrown into a chair and strapped in. Margo was trained to fly this thing, so she shoved Oakley and Lucky out of the way to get into the captain’s chair. 

“Fuck! Get her ID!”

Ollie was crying. But he wasn’t screaming. He felt around Emmy’s suit for the card. 

“She doesn’t have it!”

“I got this - hold the door!”

Emmy was too far away to have noticed, but Hugh - or, whatever was masquerading as Hugh - was screaming and ramming against the door. The little dropship shook with the force, and Margo and Oakley had to physically hold it shut to prevent those tendrils from opening it up. Lucky unceremoniously ripped a panel off the bottom of the control console, and began ripping out wires and rewiring them. 

“Hurry the fuck up!” Margo screamed.

“Don’t let him in!” Ollie yelled. He hopped into a seat close to Emmy and buckled in, just like his daddy had taught him. “He killed Emmy!”

“She’s not dead!” Lucky yelled back. “There - Margo, go!”

The scene was beginning to blur. But she could faintly make out Margo running from the door to the controls, and demanding the ship open up. She started the dropship up even before the door to the outside was fully open, and gunned it. Metal scraped against metal - but all that was lost was some paint. 

And then they were out. Into an asteroid field, and bound for...where?

“Polus!” Oakley sounded. He buckled himself in beside Ollie. “It’s the closest outpost to here!”

“No, Mira is closer!” Margo shouted back, ”Shut up and let me drive!”

Maybe that would have been funny, if she wasn’t a billion miles away. Lucky came up to her, on his knees, and held Emmy’s face in his hands. He gagged visibly. 

“Sorry - it’s gonna be okay, Em! It’s…”

“Eye's gone,” Emmy slurred. “Eye’s gone…”

“No no no, it’s - don’t think about it. Em - where’s the medkit on this thing?” 

The visual snow she was seeing got more intense. Lucky looked like a blur of pixels on an old TV. Her ears rang. Lucky patted her cheek.

“Come on Em, where’s the med kit? You gotta stay up!”

“Upper...left...panel…” 

“Thank you. Hang tight.”


	10. Planetside

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Waking up in a new era.

It was a long time before she woke up. She faded in and out for a little while, but she didn’t completely wake up for some time. When she did, she was in a medical bay. The only reason she could tell this was because of the smell of cleaning supplies and the offensively bright halogen lights. There was a horrific ache in her skull, the likes of which she had never experienced before. It was like needles were being driven into her head at various points and trying to mush her grey matter. Her body felt like it weighed a billion pounds. She lifted her right arm, and pressed her hand against her forehead. There was a thick wrap around the right side of her face - and briefly, she panicked. And then the memory of Hugh ripping her eye out came back, and she let her arm sink back to her side. 

Losing the eye made her feel...a lot of things. She was not rendered useless quite yet, but she knew enough about medicine to know that one, she was very lucky she didn’t die, and two, that her perception of the world would be changed drastically. Her depth perception, object tracking, and god knows what else would be halved. It certainly made her momentarily unsuitable for work, but it wasn’t as if they could just ship her off somewhere to heal. 

“Hello there,” came an unfamiliar voice. Emmy was hesitant to sit herself up, but luckily she didn’t have to. The person wielding the voice stepped into her line of sight. They were in a red uniform, and from where she was laying they looked tall. 

“Hi,” she replied meekly. Her throat was dry. “Where’s my crew?” 

“Just down the hall,” they said. Emmy’s vision was blurry. She didn’t know if that was the missing eye or the fact her glasses weren’t on her face. But from the smudges of detail she could see, this person was all sharp angles and pretty dark skin, like Hazel’s. She couldn’t read what her patches said, but she had an idea this had to be the local medic. “How are you feeling?” 

“Like I should have died,” Emmy said, “Where are we?”

“Polus,” they sigh. Emmy watches them reach up and tighten the ponytail on their head. “From what they tell me, your crew was headed for the HQ in orbit, but they found it burning. So they came to this remote little outpost instead.” 

“Which outpost?” 

“We’re in the northern most pole of the planet. It’s covered in ice and snow, but we’re actually on top of an active volcano. We’re here studying the activity.” 

Right. This was the outpost Emmy had wanted to be at. She loved the cold, and she found volcanic activity fascinating. Plus there was evidence of heat-loving bacterial flats and active geysers she wanted to see, but she got stuck in space instead. If she had been placed planetside, maybe…

“Have you - “

“We are organism-free at the moment,” they said. If Emmy was seeing correctly, they had a grimace. “Much of our crew was destroyed. But we contained the outbreak.” 

“Do you have more data on it?”

The person hummed. “You should slow down a little bit. We haven’t even exchanged names.” 

“Oh. I’m Doctor Emmy - “

“I know who you are. But you don’t know who I am.” 

They stepped over so they could lean right over her face. The details of their face became clearer, and Emmy realized they had a very feminine looking face. She was clearly older, and the sharpness of her features combined with the wrinkles in her skin gave her the appearance of an ornery school principal. She had...makeup on. And perfume, it seemed. She smelled like old flowers and medical supplies. Emmy was reminded of a school nurse she had once, who didn’t actually seem to care about the children she was supposed to care for. 

“I’m Doctor Olivia.” 

There was something unsettling about how she spoke. Maybe it was just nerves, but Emmy got the feeling this doctor couldn’t be trusted. 

“Nice...to meet you.” 

“Likewise. Oh - your eye...your crew managed to keep you from bleeding out. The eye was obviously not something we could ever hope of saving. I had to cut some necrotizing flesh out of the socket, but your crew managed to keep it fairly well taken care of until you got to me. So you should heal up just fine. I also cleaned the other injuries on you from the attack, as well as some damage from...blunt force.” 

“I hit a hunk of space rock.”

“Ah. You may have a concussion.” 

“It would explain the headache and the nausea.”

“So would trauma. But we shouldn’t rule it out. Anyhow - you’re clear to get up and walk around if you’re up for it. I see no reason to baby you.”   
Olivia waved a dismissive hand as she walked off, and Emmy heard a door hiss open and shut, and a decontamination sequence begin. Emmy admittedly didn’t really care about the doctor or where she was going. She wanted to see her crew. She was very slow to sit herself up, and her head pounded the entire time. She found her glasses on a small bedside table, and she frowned at the sight of the shattered glass of the right lens. She supposed it didn’t matter anymore - but it was a jarring sight. It made the loss feel more final. 

Emmy slipped her glasses onto her face, before carefully lowering herself off the medical bed. Her depth perception was absolutely fucked - so she misjudged the distance between the bed and the floor, and had to catch herself on the bedside table so she didn’t smash herself into the floor. Learning to cope with monocular vision was going to be a process, and she hated that. So much was already working against her, and now… 

Oh. She was naked. 

Emmy felt suddenly even more uncomfortable with that whole conversation. She could see the bandages all over her. Hugh’s tentacles did more of a number on her than she expected. She was bruised all over her sides and across her belly, and the bandages on her were faintly red with fresh blood. She could feel other bandages on her back - and to her dismay, many of her fingernails had been broken midway down. Probably from clawing at the floor and trying not to be eaten by Hugh. Some of her toenails were broken too, but not as badly as her fingers. She felt embarrassed. Thankfully, though, her suit was hung up off to the side. It was bloody and the outer fabric was torn a little, but it was hers. Her underclothes were on a chair underneath it, and still mostly clean. They smelled a little sweaty...but she was happy to put them on anyway. She had been wearing her pajamas the last time she got into the suit, so the pants were pink and soft and the shirt was also pink and soft. Her socks had bunnies on them.

After dressing herself, Emmy took a second to lean against the bed and get her bearings. The medical bay here was small, but it had an offshooting hallway that she assumed Olivia had taken. On the other side was a huge research lab, and even farther down the way, a door to...probably the outside. She didn’t really know. Emmy began a slow walk through the lab. 

God, it really was huge. It was like a dream. It made her dinky little lab back on the ship look like even more of a shoebox than it already had. 

It was unoccupied, though. So she twisted her helmet on and went outside. 

Polus was as desolate as advertised. Wind howled, blowing snow violently against the buildings. She followed the signs to the office, and that was where she found her crew, eating as though they hadn’t in months. They were gathered around a huge wooden table, and they looked...very tired. 

Ollie saw her first. He gasped loudly, and pointed. “Emmy’s up!” 

They all looked up then, and cheered her name. They all hopped up and went to hug her - and she was quickly overwhelmed by arms and faces. She got stiff, initially, but after a moment she relaxed and wrapped her arms around as many of them as she could. 

“Hey guys, I lived.” 

They backed off after a second, and went to sit down again. Ollie insisted on taking one of Emmy’s hands and leading her to a chair. Of course, he didn’t know how to lead a partially-blind person, so she bumped into a chair and knocked her shin. She settled into a rolling chair beside Lucky, and was suddenly very thankful she didn’t have to stand up anymore. She was exhausted. 

Lucky slid her a plate that was full of sandwiches and chips. It smelled like it had real vegetables on it, and her stomach grumbled. She couldn’t remember the last time she had real lettuce. She examined a sandwich and was delighted to find it was lettuce, tomato, turkey, and provolone. It would be dry, but god would it be good. 

“I’m glad you made it,” Lucky said through a mouthful. Emmy could smell the roast beef from his sandwich. “It looked a little grim there for a while. We’re on Polus!”

“The station in orbit was on fire,” Margo said flatly. She popped a Cheeto puff in her mouth. “I guess we aren’t the only unlucky fucks who ran into the parasite.” 

She knew Olivia had said that earlier, but it was hard to hear again. A whole station burning in orbit. This was dire. “How are things on-planet?” 

“They have half a crew,” Oakley chimed in. He was opening a bag of Cheetos with his teeth. “They had a run in with it but they threw it into the lava. So they’re clean now.” 

“Have you met the other crewmembers?” Emmy asked quietly. She took a small bite of her sandwich. It felt like the most gourmet thing she had ever eaten. 

“Yeah. Doctor Olivia is their red, some Russian named Sasha is their blue, their lime green is a girl named Josie, they have a black named Nadir, a yellow named Lin, and their white is Charlie. I don’t remember what jobs they do because I don’t care.” Margo took a huge bite of her sandwich after stating all of that. Emmy was impressed by how grumpy she looked while eating. It was a talent.

“And they did contain their infection?” 

“Yeah. We’re safe here, Em,” Lucky said with a smile. Ollie passed a small sugar cookie down to Lucky, who in turn slid it to Emmy. “You can relax.” 

Emmy wasn’t so sure about that one.


	11. BFFs

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lucky and Emmy have a moment alone.

Everyone was very tired. After eating and getting the rest of the Polus crew to meet Emmy, the tired survivors of _The Skeld_ were shown to an empty section of sleeping quarters. Since much of their team had been killed, there were more than enough beds to go around. Charlie, the white crewmate, had spent time making makeshift rooms for them. Charlie was a chunky brunette with big green eyes. They were from Sweden, and their English wasn’t the best, but they were so kind. The five members of _The Skeld_ were happy to be sleeping near to each other. Margo had a space for herself, but it was only a foot away. Lucky and Oakley had a queen sized pushed between big crates, with enough space for both of them and Ollie. It had been the captain’s, but since she was dead now, it was theirs. Emmy got a modest cot on the other side of the boxes, and was given a few extra blankets to regulate her temperature better. She hadn’t lost enough blood to die, but she did lose enough that she would need some help keeping her extremities warm. 

They managed to get some good sleep, despite the horrors of the day. Exhaustion gave no heed to emotional trauma. Lucky woke up after a few hours, though, to a soft sound. He thought it might be Ollie having a cry, but when he looked, the little boy was fast asleep in a little ball against Oakley’s chest. His instincts told him not to investigate, but he ignored those and slipped out of bed. He stepped right into his boots to avoid the cold of the floor, and grabbed his blanket off the bed to keep his body warm. The room wasn’t that cold, but there was only so much you could do when the outside temps settled somewhere around -30. He walked towards the sound - and it led him to Emmy’s half of the room. 

“Em?” 

“Shit - I’m sorry, did I wake you?” 

She definitely was crying. It was too dark to see the fine details of her features, but she sounded miserable. He stepped over and felt around for a light. Emmy put her hand on his. 

“Light hurts, please don’t.”

“Sorry. Are you okay?” 

Emmy was quiet for a moment. It worried Lucky for a second, but then he heard her sniffle. “No. I’m in _so much pain._ ” 

Lucky frowned. Of course she was in pain. Her fucking eyeball had been removed. He sat down on the bed beside her. “Do you want a hug?” 

“Please.” 

He lifted an arm, blanket hanging like a wing, and hugged her from the side. She rested her head on him, and he squeezed her. 

“I’m sorry about this whole mess,” Emmy said mournfully. She sniffed - Lucky could feel a wet spot forming on his shirt from a mixture of snot and tears. He didn’t care - he had a baby who did about the same. If anything, it made him feel worse for her. She was normally so proud, and now she was a shivering, crying mess. “I didn’t mean to let it loose. I really didn’t.” 

“I know you didn’t, Em,” he reassured her. He rubbed her arm. “We aren’t alone in what happened, either. It’s okay.”

“Not really...we’re all doomed.”

“Don’t be like that. C’mon.” 

They sat in silence for a minute or two. Lucky could feel the tension leaving her the longer he held her, and it made his heart feel funny. Why had they hated each other so much? They were just people. Now more than ever. After another few beats of quiet, Emmy spoke with a shaky little voice.

“Do you think you could get some painkillers from the medbay for me? I don’t think I can make it. I can come with you if you want, but…”

It was one hell of a request. He wasn’t sure exactly how cold it was, but it was gonna require suiting up to get there. Thankfully, it wasn’t far. But given the circumstances…

Fuck it. 

“Yeah, I can do that for you Emmy. Sit tight.” 

Lucky helped her lie back down. She had to sit on her back and at an angle, which he knew wasn’t comfortable. She was a side sleeper who liked to be buried in soft things. He tucked her in before he went back to his side of the room, where he began suiting up. Unlike Emmy, his suit had suffered no damage. It was dirty - but it wasn’t damaged. He gently shook Oakley awake before he left, to let him know what he was doing. Oakley barely managed to acknowledge what he said, as was typical of a sleepy Oakley, but Lucky figured that was good enough. 

The door hissed open when he placed his card on the scanner. Sasha, who was in charge of the security, had keyed them into the system before they went to bed. He was stern, and old. Probably the oldest in the outpost aside from Olivia. He had well-kept white hair and tasteful stubble. And a mean, mean look. 

Lucky headed into the snow. The wind was kicking up snow just as violently as earlier, but it somehow felt even colder now. The suit kept the bite out, but he still hugged himself as he trudged through the fresh powder towards the medical bay. Little lights pulsed red on the ground through the snow in even paths. So all he had to do was follow the lights, and he made it to the door before he knew it. He tapped his card against the pad and let himself inside, sighing with relief as the warm air hit him. He flipped his visor up as he headed for medical. 

He was startled to see Olivia working at a table. She looked up when he made a noise, then looked back at what she was handling. “You’re up late. Or early, however you view it.” 

Lucky blinked. Olivia wasn’t in her suit. It was on a dummy off to the side, and she was just in a lab coat, a long sleeve shirt, and jeans. She had a pair of small glasses that were down at the edge of her nose, giving her eyes a beady look. She was swirling some sort of liquid in a vial with a careful hand. The color of the contents reminded Lucky of old paint water. He made a face. “Yeah, Emmy needs some pain killers.” 

Olivia tutted. She set her vial in a wooden holder alongside other vials containing the same fluid. She removed her gloves and dumped them into a small incinerator, where they were quickly reduced to ashes. She stepped into the small medical bay and rummaged around in the cabinets for a moment, before returning, and dumping a bottle of medication, as well new gauze and wrappings into his arms, before going back to her work station.

“If she has drainage she will need you to replace her dressings. Give her two of those pills, and put her back to sleep. She needs to heal.” 

“Thanks, Olivia,” he said quietly. There was something off about her. Lucky couldn’t place it, but something in his gut told him there was more to her than met the eye. “We really appreciate - “ 

“I have work to do, you know,” Olivia snapped. She glared at him, and Lucky felt pissed. Maybe her response to trauma was to be a dick, but he didn’t deserve it. He decided to give her the benefit of the doubt and swallow his anger. “Be careful on your way back. Temps are low.” 

“Right…” 

Lucky couldn’t help but stare at those vials she was working with. He was certain something was squirming inside them, but he couldn’t be sure. He started to walk towards the door, but found himself pausing. He opened the door, waited a few moments, and then let it hiss shut again. He then tiptoed back, and peered around the corner, just out of Olivia’s line of sight. 

She was holding one of those vials again. Up against the light, his suspicions were confirmed. There was something squirming inside there. It kept changing shape - one minute, it was fat and long like a slug. Then, it was flat. Lucky wasn’t an expert, but if he had to guess what the parasite looked like - that would be it. 

Olivia seemed unsatisfied with whatever her experiment was. She set the vial down and picked up another. It was slightly less cloudy, and the organism wriggling inside looked just like the other. It, too, kept morphing shapes. It looked very interested in breaking through the vial. Interestingly, it did not seem to be interested in Olivia. Or, that’s what Lucky thought. Like Emmy had said earlier, they had no idea how sentient they were, or what their motives were. 

Nope. Lucky didn’t want to be an idiot in a horror movie. He hightailed it out of there. As he shuffled through the snow, he hoped that Olivia would blame the door noise on the wind or something. But fuck it - if it came down to it, he would just say he was curious. She’d be annoyed, but it wasn’t like she was his commanding officer. What was she gonna do, throw him into the lava? 

Lucky made it back to the sleeping quarters way faster than he had left them. Once he was inside, he kicked the snow off his boots before dumping his suit near the door. In nothing but leggings and a teal sweater he walked into Emmy’s room. She was squinting at the tablet on her arm when he arrived, and he smacked her leg when he got close enough. 

“Ow.” 

“Don’t look at screens right now, it’ll put more strain on your eye. Aren’t you supposed to be a doctor?” 

Lucky flipped the light on. It was just a table lamp, but it lit up Emmy perfectly. Her hair was still a mess, matted with her own blood, and she looked like she needed a bath. Olivia had been right- the bandage over her eye was indeed showing a little color. Lucky offered Emmy two pills from the bottle to take while he began undressing her wound. 

“I’m a little embarrassed,” she said quietly. She dry swallowed her pills. “Kind of weird and ugly to just...have a hole in your face.” 

“We all have holes in our faces,” Lucky retorted. He was so careful as he worked. He was utterly disgusted by anything having to do with eyeballs, but Emmy needed to be taken care of. He cleaned up the area a little, before bandaging her up again. 

“I think Olivia has…”

Should he tell her? It felt right to do so - it was something suspicious and if anyone knew what the thing looked like, it would be Emmy. 

“Has what?” 

Lucky frowned, and continued speaking again, but more softly. “I think she might be up to something. But I can tell you more tomorrow.”

“No...I need to know.” 

Emmy looked grave. He had never seen her look so colorless. 

“I think she still has live specimens. While I was in there, I thought I saw her examining some in murky little tubes. But I could be wrong.” 

Lucky was sure that was enough to write it off until tomorrow, but when he looked back at Emmy, she was actively getting herself untucked. Lucky put a hand on her lap. “What are you doing? You need to rest.” 

“If she has live specimens, then we have a problem. Get off the bed. I need to go talk to her.” 

“Emmy. I’m sure it’s fine - “

“That’s what I thought, too! And now over half of our crew is dead and we’re marooned on a desolate ice planet!” 

“Emmy,” he said sternly, “There is nothing you can do about it right now. You’re too fucked up and nobody else is awake. If there’s a problem, we need numbers to handle it. Plus - they outnumber us. This is her crew now. We can’t just run in there, guns blazing.” 

She looked hurt. But she settled back down into bed. 

“Okay…” 

Emmy sounded defeated. Lucky gave her a reassuring pet on her leg. It made her relax a little. She turned so she was on her side, and slid an arm under her pillow. No, it wasn’t how Olivia said she had to sleep. But Lucky wasn’t about to argue with the poor thing. He tucked her in again, but before he could shut the light off, she put a hand on his arm.

“Lucky…”

“Yeah, Em?”

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you to leave me behind when Hugh was coming after us. It would’ve been smart. You would’ve had more time.” 

Lucky shook his head. “I wouldn’t have done it anyway.” 

She smiled, though it was small and sad. “Thank you. I’m sorry for how hard I’ve been on you. I think it’s because...I’m jealous of you.” 

Lucky laughed, “Jealous of me? That’s dumb. Don’t be jealous. And I’m sorry for being a jerk too.” 

“Do you want to be friends?” 

The way Emmy asked reminded Lucky of being a little kid again. Hopeful, yet shy all at once. He couldn’t stop himself from smiling. He patted her head. “Sure thing, Em. We can be friends.” 

Then he shut off the light, and went back to his room.


	12. A Return to Normal

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The crew tries to make themselves feel human again.

The next morning, the crew slept in. They were left undisturbed by the Polus crew, so it was around midday when they finally started to stir. The first thing they did was strip down and dump their soiled clothes into a bag to be washed. Then they changed into robes provided to them ( they were disposable, so they weren’t very comfortable ) and headed for the showers. Lucky noticed that Emmy took longer than the others to get ready to take a bath. She was slow and tentative with taking her clothes off, and it seemed like she was very sore. It made him frown. 

“Oak,” he said quietly to his partner. Lucky was occupied with getting his son tied up in his little robe ( which Charlie had cut from a towel ) when Emmy caught his eye. “Do you think Emmy will need help?”

“Probably,” he replied, sliding his shirt off over his head. He was very excited to get the grime off of himself - he had dirt leftover from the last time he worked, as well as blood from Emmy on his suit. The smell was probably the worst part. “Can she even shower with...you know.” 

“She’s got no eyeball,” Ollie said, probably a little louder than he should’ve. Lucky hushed him and tied his robe tight. 

“Ollie. Don’t be so loud, okay?” 

“But she doesn’t! It got eaten.” 

“Ollie.” 

Emmy laughed. She had evidently gotten over there just in time for that conversation. She had a smile on her face, though. In the light of day she looked even worse than Lucky thought, all bruised and cut up. She looked like she had been in a cage match with a grizzly bear. He noticed how nasty her nails were, too, and had to make an effort not to cringe. “It’s alright. I’m not mad.” 

Ollie looked up at her and held onto his daddy’s shoulder. He wasn’t afraid of Emmy per say, but she did look rather scary. She waved at him to try and put him at ease. 

“How are you three this morning?” 

“We’re alright, all things considered,” Lucky replied. He stood up, and ruffled his baby’s hair before picking him up. Ollie couldn’t take his eyes off of Emmy. “How about you?” 

“About the same...would kill for an iced coffee right about now.” 

“Heh. You’d always kill for an iced coffee.” 

Emmy clicked her tongue and threw up some finger guns. She then gave a huge yawn, and stretched as much as her battered body would allow. “See you in the showers.” 

“See you!” the little family said in unison.

It took them a minute or two to catch up with Margo and Emmy. The showers were connected to the sleeping quarters via a small hallway. Everything was cold steel here. They were used to that sort of thing, but there was something particularly draining about the lack of life in this building as opposed to that on their ship. Lucky was reminded of the homesickness he had felt at sleepovers as a child. You were somewhere safe, but unfamiliar, and with your friends asleep you felt isolated. Lucky was, well, lucky enough to have his family by his side. But he could imagine the oppressive feeling would be getting to the others much more. The room where the showers were was huge. It was coed, just like the ship, but they wouldn’t be on top of each other. When you first walked in there was a line of sinks with a huge mirror, several bathroom stalls, and then it opened into a huge room full of short walls and fancy looking shower heads. On the far end, Lucky could see a small offshoot where the laundry was. Margo had dragged their collective clothing into that room, and even over the heavy scent of government-issued soap he could smell the laundry going. It felt...normal. 

“I want papa to take me!” Ollie said. The little boy squirmed in his daddy’s arms. 

“Stop wiggling. We’re both gonna take you.” 

“Nooooo...I wanna be down!” 

Lucky rolled his eyes, and set Ollie on the floor. He quickly toddled over to Oakley ( who had not been paying the least bit of attention ) and tugged on his robe. “Hey, don’t do that. You’ll make my robe come undone.”

“Uppy!” 

“Ollie...you can walk, you know.” 

The little boy jumped up and down and made little grabby hands. Oakley looked to Lucky, who shrugged at him. Oakley gave a sigh before picking up the fussy little wiggler at his feet. Ollie immediately began playing ( read: pulling ) his papa’s hair. Oakley grimaced deeply. 

As they walked towards the nearest open shower, Emmy caught Lucky’s eye. She was sitting off to the side near the laundry room, and trying very hard to massage chunks of dried gore out of her hair. She wasn’t even wet - nor was she out of her robe. He frowned. 

“Hey, can you handle him?” Lucky said to Oakley, without looking away from Emmy. 

“Yeah, I guess - oh you’re already leaving. Okay.” 

Lucky didn’t wait for him to say yes, he just headed over to Emmy. 

“Hey,” he said, “You...doin’ okay?”

Emmy looked up with a scowl as she fought a chunk of something. Lucky didn’t want to think about the fact he was pretty sure that was a bit of jaw with teeth still attached. “Not really. I can’t wash my own fucking hair because I can’t get my eye...my eye hole wet. So I have to try and get pieces of Jasper and Ezra and myself out of my hair with nothing.” 

Lucky frowned. “Y’know, I could...help you, if you’re okay with that.” 

Emmy blinked. “You’d do that for me?”

“Yeah. I mean - I have a kid who likes to get into the garbage and grew up with a million siblings. Do you have an idea how many times Ollie shit all over himself? And me? This is nothing.”

That elicited a hearty laugh from Emmy. It was good to see her like that - they’d all been through something awful, and if he could make her smile just for a second, he could feel a little better. He offered her a hand. “C’mon. Let’s do this.” 

Lucky set her up in what was essentially a makeshift washing station that you’d expect to see in a hair salon. She sat in a chair with her head over the back of it, and Lucky carefully used the shower water to wash her hair. It was horrific the amount of shit in her hair - Hugh dragging her through the muck on his floor had picked up more pieces of their crewmates than he was comfortable acknowledging. She also had her own blood matted into it. Margo had been able to score some conditioner from one of the Polus crewmembers, as well as some hair ties and a hairbrush. Emmy offered her her hand in marriage when she came over and offered it, but Margo of course turned her down with a laugh. After the gore was out of her hair, Lucky massaged soap into her head. Then he rinsed that, and gave Emmy a liberal amount of conditioner. Her hair was slick with it as Lucky began brushing her hair out. The poor girl had tears in her eyes from how snarled her hair still was, but she remained thankful and silent as Lucky worked. This was of course worsened by how painful the wound on her face was. Every pull agitated her eye, and Lucky apologized every time she winced. After a decent amount of brushing, he rinsed her hair out and began to braid it. After that was all done, he patted her cheek. 

“Get your robe off. I’ll help you wash the blood off.” 

Emmy was...a little shy about being naked. But she was in no position to turn down the help. So she stood with his help, and took her robe off. Lucky set it on a hook nearby, and had her sit down again. He used a washcloth and hot, hot water to clean her up. Lucky broke the silence by talking about his experience washing his siblings as a younger man, joking and laughing about the chaos of bathtime in a house of five kids. It made Emmy feel more comfortable, and the whole experience ended up being fantastic. Once she was free of dirt, gore, and blood he helped her up again and gave her a towel to dry herself with. She wrapped it around herself, before hugging him.

“Thank you,” she said quietly. “I don’t know what I would do without you.”

Lucky hugged her back, trying very hard to ignore the fact her bare breasts were against him. Emmy was just his friend - but he’d be lying if he said she wasn’t pretty. Nudity wasn’t weird in a situation where that many people lived in such a small space, but he still wasn’t quite used to her, since she showered at night when everyone else was asleep. “You’re welcome, Em. I’m happy to help.” 

She kissed his cheek before heading back to her room. Lucky stood dumbly in the spot where she left him for a minute, before heading over to where Oakely was struggling with their son to shower himself. 

After showertime was over, Josie from the Polus crew brought them all hot meals. She was a pretty girl with silky black hair and warm skin, who talked very fast. She had flowers in her hair, and was very excited to give them the curry she’d made with her family recipe. She lamented that she had to cut some of the ingredients out since they were so remote, but that it would taste pretty great anyway. She told them that since they weren’t technically part of the crew they didn’t have any real responsibilities, but that they could use some help with engineering and O2. She was also happy to present Oakley with a little worker robot, who had belonged to their previous O2 specialist before he got whacked. She said it exactly like that, too, and laughed as though it hadn’t affected her as profoundly as it had. She casually mentioned that Nadir was her brother, and told them that he was a grump, but nice enough. After twenty minutes of babbling she realized she had probably overstayed her welcome, and gave a very enthusiastic ‘enjoy!’ before bouncing back out into the snow. 

Emmy started to eat in her little room alone, but Lucky quickly put a stop to that by inviting her to eat with them. He offered the same kindness to Margo, but she politely declined. She wanted some space to deal with Orla, and Lucky understood. Emmy was, however, very happy to accept the invitation though she feigned bashfulness. She ended up sitting cross legged on the bed with the three of them, carefully forking chicken and rice into her mouth. She had to work hard to keep from scarfing it - a problem which little Ollie did not seem to have. Lucky was a miracle worker with how he kept Ollie from ruining their bedsheets with it. Emmy had no idea how he did it.   
After eating all that food and being still warm from the shower, everyone felt a little sleepy. Margo could be heard lightly snoring in her room, and Emmy and Ollie ended up asleep on the bed. Lucky tucked them both in - he and Oakley were sleepy too, but they had been asked to help out. They took their time suiting up - making several pauses to kiss and giggle - but once they were fully suited, they headed out. 

The pair met up with Lin and Josie in the office. Lin was a stern woman - she didn’t take her helmet off, but when she spoke she commanded so much respect they both couldn’t help but straighten their posture. 

“Oakley. You will be handling our O2 outputs. We do not need as much as you did on the ship, but we funnel in artificial O2 into the buildings because we’re so high up and the atmosphere is so thin. That robot didn’t come free - like you, we have a tree you have to care for. It will help you with small tasks. I will be showing you to O2, but I work with our water systems. We rely on the heat beneath the surface for power, so we have to regulate it. I will be very busy in the room below yours, but if you have questions I’ll be around. Josie will handle you, Lucky. Let’s get a move on.” 

Oakley didn’t get a single word in. He shrugged at Lucky, before following after Lin. Josie clapped and squealed excitedly once they were gone. 

“So I’m Josie as you know, I work primarily in the lab but I know a thing or two about engineering! Like, where electrical is and where the seismic stabilizers are.” 

She thought that was very funny. Lucky found it funny that she thought it was funny, so he laughed too. Josie was probably the bubbliest thing he had ever met - all despite the fact she had seen some of her crew ripped to pieces. He didn’t understand how she did it. 

“Anyway! We’ll be going into the specimen room right away where Olivia and my brother Nadir keep all their fun little trinkets they’ve found on the planet! The computer down there is being so fussy, so we were hoping you’d be able to fix it! Also some other stuff down there is on the fritz but I zone out when they talk to me, so you’ll just have to play ‘I Spy’!” 

“Alright, sounds like a plan! Lead the way!” 

Josie didn’t stop talking, even as they made their wall through the halls to the door that connected the office to the specimen lab. Her vocoder was a little off so it sounded like nonsense, but he knew well enough to laugh when she laughed and throw in a few interested ‘wow, that’s crazy!’s when appropriate. She insisted on decontaminating with him and leading him down into the lab, but once he was actually down there, she was off to go do...something else. 

The room was pretty barebones. It was covered in sanitary plastic wrap, and in the center there was a table with various things suspended in bubbling liquids of various colors. The computer was huge. Beside it was what looked like a cooler, and there was one on the far side to match it. It was nice and quiet down here - it was like being in a rabbit’s den. The only downside was the chill in the air, but as long as he kept his helmet on it probably wouldn't be too big of a deal. Of course, the second he went to lay on the ground to get into the computer, his helmet was in the way. So he had to take it off and put it aside, while he ripped out wires and began working. 

Hours crawled by. The computer was truly fucked - whoever had been their engineer before had royally fucked it up. It was ugly down there. 

He heard something as he started to finish up. He was soldering while laying down which was both stupid and difficult, but he paused when it sounded like something broke behind him. He was sure a glass had shattered, but that didn’t make any sense. He was alone down there. 

He paid it no mind, and kept working. But he couldn’t shake the feeling something was off. Eventually he couldn’t take the suspense, and rolled onto his side so he could look behind him. 

Instantly, something shoved itself up his nostril. It felt like the biggest booger in the universe had wedged itself in there - or maybe a rotten banana. He tried to blow it out but it dug deep into his sinuses before he could do much about it. He gagged and coughed as it slithered inside him, and just as his eyes caught the sight of a broken test tube on the far end of the room, he went out like a light.


	13. Monsters Afoot

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Everything goes to hell in a handbasket.

Emmy paced back and forth across the lab floor. She chewed on the inside of her cheek, a knot twisted up in her belly. Just on the other side of a thin curtain, Lucky was restrained to the medical bed Emmy had been on just a day ago. Olivia had found him in the specimen lab having a seizure. They had no idea what was going on - and Emmy assumed the worst. Clearly the Polus crew was not as thorough as they thought they were. She felt stupid for trusting them. All she could think about was Oakley and Ollie, who were sitting in the lab with the rest of the people in this outpost. After Olivia called an emergency meeting, they had all moved here. She recounted her horrifying find and introduced them to his unconscious body. Immediately, all four scientific minds began throwing ideas back and forth over what could’ve happened, and what they should do. 

Emmy was the only one who remained silent. She mulled the situation over in silence as the others talked over each other for solutions. They had stupid ideas like a brain hemmorage, or a stroke. But none of those made sense to her. He wasn’t epileptic. He had no medical history that would suggest anything like that. She would know! She had been scanning his physiological wellbeing for years now. She knew what the folds of his fucking brain looked like, for crying out loud. They were full of nothing but mindless conjecture. It set her on edge how cool Olivia was during all this. Even if she was ‘just like that’ or wrote them off as not her problem she could attempt to show some human compassion in a time like this. He was a father, for fucks sake.   
Emmy paused her pacing when she heard a noise just beyond the curtain. Lucky was beginning to move - she could hear him grumbling and the restraints around his wrists and ankles clang against the metal of the bed. She held up a finger to silence the others, and pulled back the curtain. 

Lucky was instantly sick on himself. When he threw up, it didn’t look normal. Among the stomach acid and chunks of curry were thin lines of black fluid. It smelled rotten. Emmy swallowed hard, before stepping in closer. 

“Lucky...?”

Lucky croaked out her name, and as he did so the lights flickered on. He hissed as they hit his face. His eyes were bloodshot and bulging and spots of popped blood vessels peppered his face. She could smell his breath from where she stood and she could only describe it as rotting flesh. She pressed a hand over her mouth. The worst had to be true - he had to be infected. She had never seen something like this before. It was something out of a horror movie. 

“Oh my god. What happened?” 

Lucky groaned. He spit on the floor, and it was viscous and black. Emmy stared at it, horrified. 

“Worm went up my nose,” he said, his voice ragged. He sounded like he had the universe’s worst cold, or had been smoking for fifty years. “It’s fucking in me!”

“But you didn’t…”

“I’m fighting it.” 

That was a horrific concept. Emmy recalled that her samples had looked like hammerhead worms; thick, slimy, and with a mushroom shaped head. It was able to thicken and flatten itself to suit its needs. She supposed it made sense that it entered the host via the nostril and…

...and what?

The others joined her as she thought on this. Josie loudly exclaimed her disgust, while Nadir and Olivia were silent. 

“He’s infected,” Emmy said quietly. “I thought you said this outpost was clear of the parasite.”

“I kept some alive for additional testing. We can’t fight an enemy we don’t understand,” Olivia said plainly. Emmy turned to look at her, slowly, and narrowed her eye. Olivia looked down at the shorter scientist and raised a brow. 

“I know you know that that is the best course of action.”   
Emmy lost herself. Before anyone could react, she threw a punch. Her balled fist connected with Olivia’s jaw with a loud crack, and she went down like the sack of horseshit she was. As soon as she was down, Emmy sat on her chest and began wailing on her. Josie screamed, and Nadir grabbed her and backed off so the others could rush in and try and pull Emmy off of her.

_“YOU DUMB FUCKING BITCH! GIMMIE YOUR FUCKING TEETH!”_

It was Margo who managed to pull her off. She put her arms under Emmy’s and lifted her off like she weighed nothing. Emmy squirmed and screamed like a hellcat, kicking and writhing to try and get out of her grip. _“SHE’S GONNA GET US ALL KILLED, PUT ME THE FUCK DOWN!”_

“ _EMMY!_ You need to calm the fuck down! We can’t help Lucky if they throw us off the planet!”

Emmy screamed an agonized scream, but stopped struggling. She hadn’t noticed she had begun to sob, but when Margo put her down she couldn’t stop from blubbering. Her knuckles were presumably split under her gloves. Olivia was a bloody mess on the floor - she looked like she had been in a car accident. It wasn’t nearly enough, in Emmy’s opinion. Emmy got the intense urge to deck her again as she peeled herself off the floor, and spit a tooth out. 

Good. Fuck her and her teeth. 

“Now that the savagery is over, perhaps we can talk about this like adults!”

Emmy glanced over her shoulder at the other Polus crewmates. Either they were afraid of her, or they were quite happy to see Olivia get decked, because they wouldn’t look at Emmy and hadn’t helped Olivia at all. Emmy was glad they were, presumably, on her side. 

“Fuck you. We need to destroy those samples.” 

“That is not a wise decision, Emmy.”

“Neither is letting specimens out into the wild to fuck up our crewmates!”

Olivia tsked. “ _Your_ crewmate. I assume he was messing around with my samples.”

Margo put a hand on Emmy’s shoulder. This was a wise move, because she instantly tensed up to lunge at Olivia again. 

Josie cleared her throat. “Olivia...he was down there, alone, fixing your computer. Do you even keep specimens down there?”

“We don’t,” Nadir said. It was the first time Emmy had heard him speak. His voice was gruff. He had a thick accent, too. He had a thick mustache over his upper lip. “We keep preserved specimens of on-planet creatures. But nothing live. Because that would be insane.”   
“I saw her with live specimens,” Lucky said from the bed. Everyone looked at him as he shifted. Emmy felt bad. He was covered in his own vomit. “And I heard glass shatter before it went up my nose.”

“Olivia,” Nadir said, horrified. He put Josie behind himself. “You didn’t.”

It took a second. 

It took her just a second to realize what Nadir meant. 

He meant Olivia had...done this. 

On purpose. 

It all made sense. 

Lucky was working alone. She must have thrown the test tube in, and left. That was why she got to the emergency button when she did. She had time because she knew it was happening. 

Margo let Emmy go. She was okay with Emmy beating the shit of her now. But Emmy didn’t move. She saw Olivia’s hand twitch. 

“She suggested we infect a host and study it, but I couldn’t imagine she would really do it. Even she understood it was unethical.” 

Emmy narrowed her eye. Something wasn’t right. She gently put a hand on Margo’s belly, and pushed her back an inch or two. Olivia looked like she was gearing up to vomit, like a cat heaves before it hacks up a hairball. Emmy quickly pushed Margo to the floor, and just in the nick of time as well. A fat tentacle launched out of Olivia’s mouth as her face split into two, and sliced through Nadir’s chest like butter. It went through him and into his sister behind him, but when it yanked back only Nadir came with. Josie had minimal wounds thanks to her brother's body blocking Olivia’s tongue, but she screamed and collapsed to the floor anyway. Margo leapt to her feet and yanked Josie and Emmy off the floor as Olivia began ripping Nadir into bloody pieces behind them. 

“No! We can’t leave Lucky!”

Emmy yanked herself out of Margo’s grip. She kicked the stoppers on the wheels off so the bed would roll, and started running. Everyone still alive in the lab made a break for the door. Behind them, Emmy could hear Olivia shredding Nadir alive. 

Once they were outside, Sasha put the lab on lockdown. He led them to the office, and was kind enough to help Emmy push the bed through the thick snow. Ollie was screaming his head off and sobbing in a way Emmy had never heard. She could only liken it to a wounded animal. It was gut wrenching. 

Once they made it to the office, Sasha locked them inside. He and Emmy wheeled Lucky to the far left corner, before sitting at the huge table with the rest of the crew. Josie was screaming and crying almost as loudly as Ollie was, and Oakely was trying very hard to calm his baby down while also choking on his own tears. It was pandemonium. Not a single person looked even remotely okay. 

Nobody had a shining moment to take charge. They all just basked in the horror that was their reality until the screaming tapered off. It took at least an hour for everyone to settle down. The only reason Ollie stopped was because he screamed himself to sleep. Josie ended her crying by laying her head in Charlie’s lap, who pet her hair. Margo couldn’t stop staring at her hands. Sasha and Lin remained silent and unmoving. 

If Hell was real, Emmy was sure this was it. 

Once everyone was quiet, Margo stood up and cleared her throat. 

“We need to make a plan.” 

“I don’t even know where to start,” was all Emmy could muster. She cast a glance over to Lucky, who was quiet, but clearly miserable. She wondered what it felt like to have a worm in your brain. “I can’t help Lucky without access to the lab.” 

“Weapons would be a good first start,” Lin offered. She ran a hand through her silky hair. “They aren’t super effective on...the infected...but it would be enough to get its attention.” 

“Okay. How far is weapons from here?”

“Hop, skip and a jump,” Lin replied. She gestured vaguely with her hand. “Assuming she hasn’t breached the lab doors and we can navigate the snow.” 

“We’re due for a snowstorm tonight,” Josie said miserably. She was under the table still as Charlie pet her hair. “It’s gonna be hard to get anywhere.” 

“Whatever we do we have to stick together,” Oakley said quietly. He looked awful - it made Emmy’s heart hurt. “And someone should stick with Lucky.”

“Not you,” Emmy said quickly. “You have Ollie to look after. It…”

She took a deep breath, and let it out slowly.

“It should be me. I’m the last available medical professional.” 

“Exactly why we need you alive,” Margo said quickly. “He’ll survive on his own. We need to focus on sticking together, and keeping Ollie safe. The first course of action should be getting to weapons. After that…” 

“We can go through the specimen lab. It connects this building to the medical bay.” Charlie was relatively cool considering everything. They looked scared, but they had no waver in their voice when they spoke. It was comforting. “If she hasn’t broken containment, we might be able to get her with the element of surprise and just open up on her. She’s probably still...busy.” 

Josie started sobbing again. Charlie patted and shushed her, hurriedly apologizing. 

This was insane. 

“We should just abandon this outpost,” Sasha said. He was standing with his back against the wall, struggling to light a cigarette. “We have a dropship. Margo is pilot. We leave the two infected behind and head for nearby base. Simple.”

“We are not abandoning Lucky,” Emmy snapped. 

“Would be safest plan,” he shot back. “Your emotions are getting in the way of your survival instinct.” 

The room was quiet. Emmy could tell some of them agreed, but were not brave enough to voice this after she decked their medical officer like that. Emmy stood and put her hands on the table. It was time to channel the person Hugh had been before they abandoned him in space. 

“We’ll go in a team of four to weapons. The other three will remain here until the team gets back. After that, we will examine what we have, and plan how we’re going to do this. Oakley, Josie and I will stay here with Ollie and Lucky. The rest of you will go to weapons. Everyone - set a timer for thirty minutes. It shouldn’t take you nearly that long to get this over with, but if it does we’ll assume something has happened and make a backup plan.”

“You should make a backup plan before you leave,” Lucky mumbled from the other side of the room. “Dummy.”

Emmy was glad he was speaking. But she rolled her eyes anyway. “Backup plan, Josie and Oakely make a break for the drop ship. If they find you guys, great. If not, abandon me and Lucky.” 

“Emmy, you don’t have to die for me.” 

“I’m your only chance of surviving the infection. And if we both die, then at least I don’t have to be blind anymore. Now let’s go! Get a move on!”


	14. A Horror Unlike Any Other

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Emmy leads the charge.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I really enjoyed describing the monster, good lord. Enjoy some top-notch body horror! Also thank you for all the comments, I am thrilled people are enjoying my story!

It took them twenty-five minutes to return. 

In the time between their departure and their return, things in the office got weird. After a few minutes of sitting in silence, Emmy got restless and chose to go examine Lucky. Now that she really had time to look him over, she felt...even less hopeful about her chances of saving him. The fact he could fend off the infection at all was a miracle. As far as she could tell, that had not been possible on their ship. But he didn’t look healthy. The whites of his eyes were completely red now, and his gums looked inflamed and puffy. He was perpetually sweating. Emmy didn’t have a thermometer, but she could tell by putting her forearm against his forehead that he was feverish. On top of all of that, he complained of a violent headache that blurred his vision, and body aches. The horror of his condition peaked when one of his canines started to come loose. She dared not touch it after that discovery. 

“I can hear your heartbeat,” Lucky croaked. His breathing was labored - Emmy could only imagine what the thing in his brain was doing to him. “I can see your veins pulsing. The worm...it wants me to eat you.”

“I’m not very ideal prey,” Emmy said, as though this were a normal conversation. She flipped her tablet to a manual clock, and took Lucky’s pulse. “I’d be easy to hunt because I’m injured, but I can’t imagine I’d be very tasty. My flesh probably tastes like old coffee.”

Lucky offered her a weak chuckle. Emmy frowned. 

“Well...you’re not headed for cardiac arrest, so that’s good.” 

“Yippee.” 

“I think the most important thing right now is...staying conscious. If I were a parasite like this one, I would want you to go to sleep so I could take over completely.”

“We won’t let that happen,” Oakley said. He looked grave, even from across the room. He cradled Ollie’s sleeping body as though he were still an infant, and he didn’t seem able to tear his eyes away from him. Emmy felt...sad for them. She also felt oddly foreign, as though a stranger at a funeral. When the crew who had gone for weapons returned, she felt a deep sense of relief. Her relief came at a cost, though, because she felt immensely guilty about it. 

The four of them were strapped when they came back. Charlie and Lin were armed with shotguns, and Lin had a bandolier of ammo criss-crossed over her chest. Sasha and Margo were rigged up with flamethrowers, and Emmy would be lying if she said she wasn’t embarrassingly attracted to Margo like that. Her suit hid her incredible physique, but Emmy knew the kind of muscle tone it took to heft that big of a rig. Charlie passed out sidearms to everyone else in the room ( except Ollie and Lucky ), and Emmy felt very strange holding it. Emmy had no formal weapon training. Truly, it would be a last resort for her. She accepted a belt for it from Lin, and strapped it to her waist. 

“Oakley...should stay here.” 

“I agree. I should watch Ollie and Lucky.”

“I’ll babysit,” Charlie said. They handed their shotgun to Josie, who took it...reluctantly. “For your brother.” 

Josie sniffled. She wasn’t too sure about handling a weapon like the one she was just handed, but she took it anyway. She wasn’t sure about avenging anyone, clearly, but Emmy could see the spark of determination in her eyes. 

It was horrifying. 

Charlie took Josie’s seat. 

Then, it was off to the races. 

Emmy, Lin, and Josie took the lead. Margo and Sasha brought up the rear, and together they moved through the office to the sealed specimen lab door. Sasha had to cut in front to unlock it, but quickly snapped back into place as it hissed open. They cleared the room with their flashlights, before stepping in. Josie jumped when the decontamination sequence started, and Lin had to grip her arm tightly to ground her. Once the next door opened, everyone waited. The lights in the specimen lab all turned on, one by one. The group walked in slowly with their guns raised ( save for Emmy ) and were very relieved to find that the room was empty. There were spots of blood and some...viscous fluid on the floor near the computer. Emmy wanted to examine it, but the time for that would be after Olivia was dealt with. 

“Quiet,” Sasha noted. He adjusted his grip on the flamethrower. “Must be eating.” 

Margo elbowed him in the ribs. Then, they moved on. 

The next set of doors stood like a monolith before them. Never before had a set of steel doors felt so menacing. Just beyond them, it was anyone’s guess what awaited them. Emmy stopped the group before Sasha unlocked the doors. 

“Are we sure about this?” she said quietly. “The medical section is right in front of the door. If she’s still in front of it, we could have a problem.”

“If we go back and take the front entrance, she has more room to spring on us,” Margo offered. 

“That’s a fair point…” 

“It might have been smart to leave the one-eyed person and the trauma victim behind,” Lin said dryly. She shook her head. When Emmy squinted, she could see Lin’s disapproval. She had to agree. Bringing two weak links along was a poor choice. 

“I’m not going back without seeing what she did to my brother,” Josie said firmly. She sounded angry. Angry was good, but Emmy could see why having her be on this team would be a liability. Angry meant reckless. 

“We should just charge in,” Sasha suggested. “She can’t catch all of us.” 

While they couldn’t argue with his logic, there was something unsettling about the idea of losing anyone. It was certainly an unsavory suggestion. 

“Well,” Emmy said through a sigh, “Let’s get this over with.” 

Sasha unlocked the door. Cautiously, the group stepped inside. Everyone jumped when the second decontamination sequence began. In those five seconds it took to clean their suits, they all braced themselves for what lie beyond the thick steel door. When it ended and the door hissed open, the lights were off. Sasha pulled up his tablet while the others aimed at the open door. He tried turning on the lights manually - but they wouldn’t respond. Just beyond, in the darkness, Emmy could see something sparking. It briefly illuminated the lab, but she could see nothing but vague shapes. 

Lin cautiously pulled the flashlight off her suit, and flicked it on. It was pointed at the floor, initially, but she began to raise it so it shined into the darkness beyond at a painfully slow rate. 

When it hit about middle height, four eyes shined back at them. They were too far apart to be human. There were no animals on this portion of the planet - not on the base anyway. Just as quickly as they appeared, the glowing eyes dipped away. Something skittered across the floor - and that was their cue to turn on their flashlights and charge in. 

Emmy and Josie made it in first - and they instantly slipped. Emmy clonked her head on the steel tray Olivia had kept tools on and dazed herself. Josie screamed - the flashlights revealed she had slipped in a puddle of Nadir. The others rushed into the room and opened up, firing indiscriminately. Emmy could hear rounds ricocheting, but nothing landed. Just as the fog cleared her vision, Emmy looked up and watched the crew’s flashlights land on…

_“Oh my god!”_

Olivia hadn’t just eaten Nadir. They had fused. They were shaped like a worm; a mess of tangled limbs, with eyes spread across two deformed heads fused at the neck and temple. A huge, gaping maw split them down the middle. Emmy could see the back of its throat - a deep hole that nearly touched the floor. Teeth ran up either side as though the body was split by a zipper of fangs easily the size of finger bones. Drool, bile, and blood oozed out of the mouth and smeared all over the floor. Even from across the room, Emmy could see bits of misplaced clumps of hair, teeth, and bone. What had been their arms and legs were now stumpy pseudo-legs that dragged the fat body around at speeds it should not have been capable of. The noise it made when all the lights fell on it was unlike anything anyone in the room had ever heard before - it was like someone inhaling with all their might mixed with the wheezy squeal of an injured pig. 

Josie wouldn’t stop fucking screaming. Even as Lin yanked her to her feet she wouldn’t shut up - and that drew that attention of the Nadir-Olivia hybrid. 

The two heads snapped apart with a sickening crackle. From a deep hole formed by the separation of the necks, two tentacles barbed with what Emmy assumed were fragments of spine lashed out. One coiled around Lin, while the other sank into Josie’s throat like it was paper. Lin managed to pull the sidearm from her belt and shoot the tentacle, but Josie was a goner. The tentacle in her throat stopped her from breathing, but it also stopped her from bleeding out instantly. It dragged her across the room and literally threw her into its maw. It struggled to close around her given how spread apart it was, but it didn’t need to. A thick, ugly greenish fluid was regurgitated from the hole at the bottom, and quickly began eating away at Josie. 

_“Light it up, LIGHT IT UP!”_

Sasha and Margo charged forwards, and did exactly as they were told. Flame poured out of the ends of their throwers, eating up the flesh of the monster in seconds. It gurgled in a half-human half-animal wail that sent an animalistic sense of terror rushing through Emmy and Lin as they both got to their feet and held one another. As the flames ate away at the thing ahead of them, the flesh on it melted like fat off a piece of bacon. It was as if it was made of wax. It was horrifying to watch but nobody could look away as it deconstructed right in front of them. 

Emmy didn’t know how long they blasted it. 

It felt like an eternity. 

They only stopped because the lab emergency lights kicked on, and the overhead sprinklers turned on. It snuffed the flames with ease - but the damage was done. The monster - and Josie - were reduced to a half-melted pile of flesh. It smelled unreal - like burnt hair and meat, but also like vomit and month-old restaurant garbage. After the flames stopped, Lin took her helmet off and threw up into the puddle of Nadir at her feet. 

“It smells so fucking bad,” Margo groaned. “Holy fuck!” 

“The helmets do nothing!” Sasha hissed. He gagged audibly. 

“We gotta clean this up,” Emmy said miserably. She had a throbbing headache, and the smell was making it and the nausea that came along with her concussion worse. “Someone get a fucking shovel!”

They got to work. With the threat neutralized and the lights finally on, they could clean up the mess. Olivia had been busy while they hid in the office. Gore and grime was thick on most of the floor, and much of the science lab had been messed with. Chemicals were all over the floor, only neutralized by the thick slime left by the maw. Broken glass and twisted metal littered the floor. All of the remaining party members had to work together to get the half-melted body of the maw outside, where they dumped it into the lava. After that, it was all cleaning and detailing. 

It took them six hours. 

After six hours it was still a little messy, but it was safe enough to work in. They transferred Lucky back into the lab - and Margo volunteered to stand guard with her flamethrower so Emmy could work. 

The rest of them shuffled off to go wash the gore off them and pass out. Oakley protested - but both Emmy and Margo insisted that he would be more of a hindrance than a help if he stayed in the lab. He had to put Ollie to bed, and watch over him. He'd never slept without his daddy before. 

Lucky, over a course of six hours, had gotten progressively worse. He had lost a number of teeth, and was in agony as new, sharper teeth were beginning to grow in their place. His tongue had begun to get thicker and pointier, and his senses were heightened to uncomfortable extremes. His fingernails were beginning to grow longer - so quickly, in fact, if you focused on them long enough you could see them extending. 

Emmy had no idea what she was up against. 

“You could open up my skull,” Lucky suggested. Emmy had been lost in thought, scouring Lucky’s vitals, and more importantly, looking at the xray she had taken of Lucky’s head. She could see the vague, slug-like shape of the worm on his brain. She shook her head.

“I’m not a brain surgeon. I could kill you. Besides, I don’t know how entwined with your brain the thing is. Removing it could kill you.”

“Not removing it will definitely kill me.”

“I’m well aware of the challenges we face. I’m...going to take care of this.” 

“I know you are,” Lucky said. He sounded defeated. “I know you won’t let me down.” 

Emmy wasn’t so sure. She kept glancing at Margo. She looked so strong and stern where she stood. She was a model soldier - it was a wonder to Emmy why she wasn’t higher ranked. She shouldn’t be stuck there with them. Margo should be out in the universe, calling the shots with Orla by her side. 

Emmy reflected on the deaths she had seen as she began taking blood samples from Lucky. It had been too much. If this parasite ate through two full crews - plus all of the HQ above Polus - that quickly...what did that mean for the universe as a whole? Was this parasite elsewhere? It was clearly smart enough to retain some knowledge from its host - Olivia and Hugh had acted normal before they died. Would it be smart enough to return to other human colonies? To Earth? 

Worse - did other alien species know about this? Humanity had found life among the stars. This parasite was not the first. But it was the first to attempt to wipe them out so wholeheartedly. 

The existential dread was enough to kill her. She pushed it deep, deep down and began her work. If she could save Lucky, she could save everyone.


	15. Biological Warefare

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Emmy fights the clock for Lucky's life.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Can you tell how much fun I had writing this? BOY

The workload was exhausting. Emmy was fueled by adrenaline, but even that was beginning to die off. Someone had made her and Margo coffee, which helped, but keeping the mind focused on complex biology was painfully difficult when you were running on empty. She didn’t know how long she had been pushing herself. The only measure of time she had was Lucky’s worsening symptoms, which were beginning to concern her. He was exhausted and feverish from fighting the worm in his brain, so they had to keep him covered in ice packs and on an IV drip. She gave him a shot of adrenaline at some point, but with how hard his body was working it was wearing off way faster than she imagined it would. 

Emmy certainly had her work cut out for her. Between managing Lucky’s symptoms, treating her own fever, and trying to decode how the monster in Lucky’s brain worked she thought she was inches from snapping. Oddly, Emmy found herself thankful for Olivia’s negligence. Her live specimens provided her with vital test subjects. She did every test imaginable on them, working off of Olivia’s data ( which Sasha managed to get her access to ) and her own, though there was little of that considering how fast things went haywire aboard the ship. She had six live specimens to work with, not counting the one actively sucking the life out of her colleague. Finding a place to start was an arduous task on its own, but once she found it, then it was all on her to collect and analyze what she found and somehow whip up some magic bullet to take care of it. In a normal situation, things like this took months - years, even. But if she had to guess, she had less than twelve hours before Lucky either died from an adrenaline overdose or lost control to the worm. 

From what she could tell, the parasite was very similar to an Earth hammerhead worm in its physiology. The defining differences were its ability to survive in virtually any environment and its taste for flesh. Parasites that took over the minds of its host weren’t unheard of, even on Earth. Toxoplasmosis, cordyceps mushrooms, horsehair worms - all shining examples of parasites that used the host as a vehicle for their own benefit. But Emmy found this parasite to be more like the jade wasp. The jade wasp is known for injecting a biological serum into the brain of cockroaches which makes the roaches suggestable. To make sure the process worked, the jade wasp will rip off a leg or an antenna. Then the wasp leads the brainwashed cockroach into a den it has dug, where it lays its eggs in the roach. The roach remains alive, and does nothing to help itself as the wasp larvae hatch and begin eating it from the inside out. Emmy had no way to see the process happening in a non-human host for comparison, but when she looked at what little data she had, that made sense to her. Much like the wasp, the worm in Lucky’s brain was taking over to fulfill a purpose. But how did it rewrite the DNA of the host that quickly? Lucky had been infected for about eight or nine hours, give or take, and he was already losing almost all of his teeth, his tongue was long enough to touch his sternum, and his senses were heightened. On top of that, his fingers were becoming elongated and sharp. Emmy couldn’t be sure, but it looked like he was getting taller as well. There was also Nadir and Olivia - they hadn’t left them alone for that long. Half and hour, max. And they had fused together into that...thing. The parasite treated the human genome like clay. 

From what she could gather from the samples of slime she took off the worms, it had proteins in it that unzipped the human DNA strand like normal proteins in the human body would. But, it could do it on a larger, much faster scale. It shifted proteins around like a slide puzzle. It placed hox genes - the genes that told the body where things should grow - wherever it seemed fit. The forms it could produce with the human body seemed random. Hugh had been split from shoulder to hip, and before Olivia had melted into Nadir, she had that long tongue that upon a second thought must have been made of tongue and intestinal tissue. If the process was random - did that mean sentience? Olivia and Hugh’s behavior suggested that as well. They had acted relatively normal up until their discovery. The worm had to be smart enough to...plan. 

If they planned…

“Em,” Lucky wheezed. She jumped, looking up quickly from her microscope. “I need another shot.”

Emmy frowned. She walked over to his bed, and quickly took his pulse. She shook her head. 

“Your heart rate is too fast. If I give you another shot, you could die.” 

“Please,” he said, tearfully. He ran his grotesque tongue over his cracked lips. “I’m exhausted.” 

“No. I’m so close, Luck - you just gotta hang in there.” 

“Emmy…”

“Trust me. It’ll be okay.” 

Emmy wouldn’t even consider the possibility that it wouldn’t be, even though the time was rapidly ticking down and she could now begin to see his ribs. That was a feat - Lucky was a very thick man. The mass that normally rested around his belly was just gone. Burned, she assumed, by the parasite eating his brain. His body was in overdrive. She didn’t even want to think about what his white blood cell count was. She patted his thigh - and felt it squish under her hand. It was like putty. She stifled a gag and went back to her microscope. 

Lucky’s parasite wasn’t behaving like Olivia and Hugh’s. Maybe because it knew it couldn’t hide, it was fighting Lucky for control so it could turn as quickly as possible. If Emmy ventured a guess - and she didn’t really want to - Lucky was probably going to be turned into some ultra fighting form rather than messy maws like Hugh and Olivia. 

“Em, I can’t stay down like this or I’m gonna pass out.” 

“I...that’s a good point…”

“But?”

Emmy rubbed the back of her neck. It was covered with sweat; her hair was sticking to her. She felt gross. “I don’t know if we should...unchain you.” 

Margo appeared as she said that. She had her helmet off, so Emmy could see the stoic expression on her face. She had a lion heart. 

“I’ll keep watch. It’s alright. You want to play some games with me?”

Lucky nodded. Margo pulled the keys to his bindings off her belt, and unlocked him. He rubbed his sore wrists - and Emmy could see how thin they were becoming. It was mortifying. He was shockingly steady on his feet as Margo led him to the center of the room. Watching him drag his IV with her made Emmy...sad. Margo unrigged herself from the flamethrower, and took a fighting stance.

“You ever play ninja as a kid?” 

Lucky smiled. “Yeah. I’ll kick your ass.” 

Emmy tried not to get distracted. But it was nice to see them moving and laughing - from what Emmy could gather, ‘ninja’ involved taking turns trying to slap the hands of the other player. So Margo would take a step and try and slap Lucky’s hand, and he would pull away. Then he would try and slap hers - rinse, repeat. It looked like fun. 

“Be careful with his IV line, please. Don’t need that mess on top of everything else.”

Emmy had to focus. She tuned their laughter out and focused on the uglies in front of her. 

Then, she had an idea. 

Emmy held up a test tube with one of the worms in it. It struggled inside, trying to get at her. It was clearly attracted to living creatures - which made sense. But if that was true…

“Margo, give me your walkie.” 

Sasha had given her a walkie talkie, just in case. There were only two that were charged, so he kept one and she had the other. Margo turned it over to her before returning to her game. 

“Hello? Sasha - are you there?” 

There was a pause, then the walkie crackled to life in her hand.

“Am here. This is Emmy?”

“Yes. I -”

“Is Margo dead?”

“What? No, I just - “

“You do not have permission. Give back to Margo.” 

Emmy grumbled. “Sasha, don’t be stupid please. I need something from the kitchen.” 

There was a long pause. Then Sasha came back with a loud, exaggerated sigh.

“What you need?”

“I need...a fish. If you have live and dead, that would be preferable. Or...do you have a morgue?”

“No morgue. Will bring fish.” 

“Thank you.” 

Emmy wasn’t even sure if this would work. But, when Sasha showed up with a whole raw fish and a fish flopping around in a bag with not nearly enough water, she felt as though there was a glimmer of hope. She had a sinking feeling that these were pets and not food given how brightly colored the fish were, but she didn’t have time to reflect on how sad that made her. She thanked Sasha - who looked less than happy about being there - and quickly went to work. 

First, she showed the live fish to all six of the worms in their test tubes. To her surprise, they were interested. Not as interested as they had been in her, but they wiggled towards the bag. After that test she took a moment to plop the fish into an empty tank before returning to her tubes - she was busy, but not too busy to care about a fish stuck in a bag. When she returned to the table of specimens, she held up the dead fish. 

None of them moved. 

Her theory was correct. 

Emmy grabbed a test tube. She went over to the tank where the fish was hanging out. 

“Sorry little guy.”

She opened the lid to the tank and dropped the worm in. It splashed up like a rock hitting the surface of a pond, and went in for the fish immediately. She watched in horror as the worm shoved itself into the eyeball of the fish. It dug under the eye itself and squeezed past the lower lid and into the skull of the fish. The fish itself was a decently sized thing, probably two to three inches long. The worm went in with little resistance, and the change was instant. 

The fish contorted at horrific angles. Thin bones snapped and jutted out from the spine and belly; the fins melted and reshaped into claws. 

It made her think. It went right for the fish, and not for her. 

Maybe she had been giving them too much credit. As she watched the fish twitch and contort, she thought hard about all of the data she had. It was possible that these worms were not smart enough to plan. But...they could influence what their host wanted, and when the jig was up, they could rip their genes apart and go on the offensive. There was a parasitic worm that affected snails that worked like that - it burrowed into the snail and pulsed inside the eyestalks. It made the snail want to move out of cover and into the sunlight, where it was visible to birds. The pulsing of the worms inside the eyestalks of the snail drew a bird in, and the host snail would be consumed. Then the life cycle of the worm would begin - inside the gut of the bird. The snail parasite, the jade wasp, and this ugly motherfucker all had that in common. 

Emmy grabbed a scalpel off a medical supply shelf and unwrapped it. She apologized to the mutant fish, before stabbing it through the brain. It sank to the bottom of the tank, limp and bleeding. It took a moment, but the worm wriggled its fat little self out of the same eyeball it had entered just seconds ago. It sank to the bottom of the tank - and stopped moving. 

“I know how to cure Lucky!” Emmy shouted. Margo and Lucky - who were still engaged in mock combat - looked at her with big eyes.

Emmy had a huge grin on her face.

“We have to kill him!”


	16. Lucky Fucking Dies

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As the title suggests - he fucking dies.

“You’ve got to be out of your fucking mind.” 

The entire surviving crew was sitting around the big office table, staring at Emmy who stood at the far end. She had looked enthusiastic when she began - she dragged a huge paper easel into the room and went hog wild with a sharpie as she explained her plan to them. They had all started out a little excited, admittedly. Emmy finding a magic bullet was what they were all silently praying for. But what she suggested was not only insane, but probably impossible. They weren’t doctors, but they were humans with functioning brains. What was she on? 

Emmy looked like she had been punched in the gut. “What? No - I swear, it’s the only way.” 

“You could’ve just said it’s impossible to fix. You didn’t need to do all this,” Lucky said angrily. He sounded like he was on the verge of tears. “Fucks sake, Em.”

“Are you even remotely sure this would work?” Oakley snapped. He looked absolutely furious. It was probably the angriest he had ever been in Emmy’s presence. “You’re literally playing God.” 

“How would we facilitate that?” Margo added. “You said the lab is kind of barebones, didn’t you?”

“I said something to that effect, yes, but I was being dramatic! It’s way better than my old shoebox. They have functional life support systems. I could have it done and over with in like, five minutes!”

“Yeah, and I’d be fucking dead for five minutes!” 

“Listen. I know it’s scary, but things like that happen all the time! People can be dead for upwards of ten minutes and still be brought back!”

“Holy shit, Emmy!” 

Silence fell over the room. Nobody was cool with her plan. Not a single one of the people in the room would even consider it - even Sasha, who thought they should just dump Lucky into the lava pool, objected. Emmy felt crushed. 

“Please, just listen to me. The worm will only exit a host if the host is dead. I have to stop his heart long enough for the worm to fuck off, and then I can revive him with an AED or with a shot of adrenaline.” 

“And what are my options, then, Emmy?” Lucky snapped. A tooth fell out of his mouth at that moment - it clattered on the table. His face got red. 

“Well...as I see it, we have three options.” 

Emmy flipped to a fresh page and began making a numbered list. 

1\. Freezing   
2\. Punch to the chest   
3\. Electricity 

After making the list, she turned to face them. Lucky whipped his tooth at her, which made her scream. 

“Not in a MILLION _FUCKING_ YEARS will I let you PUT ME IN A FREEZER! And _punch to the chest?_ Are you dying of dementia?” 

Emmy scrambled to reply, but Lucky was nowhere near finished with her. He was so angry, in fact, that he pushed Oakley’s hand off him and launched his chair backwards so he could stand. He picked up a pen off the table and whipped that at her, too. It donked her forehead. 

"What do you fucking expect from me, huh? You wanna have the grave ready for when you inevitably can't get me back up again? You want me to say my goodbyes to Oakley and my baby while you take the remote apart with no idea of how to put it back together? You're not qualified for this! I'm not fucking dying with the false hope I'm gonna come back at the hands of some biologist too big for her fucking britches!" 

He stopped only when he ran out of air and his voice cracked, sending him into a coughing fit from yelling too much for the energy level he had after hours of fighting an invisible enemy. Oakley patted him on the back as he sat back down. Oakley had been smart enough to slide the chair back in place while he was screaming, assuming he’d need to sit the fuck down once he was done. From under the table, Ollie put his head in Lucky’s lap. He received ample head pets from his daddy as he tried to catch his breath. 

Emmy cleared her throat. All eyes were on her now. She felt like she was naked in front of them. She didn’t know what to do or what to say. They had no other choice - she wasn’t a fucking brain surgeon. 

“We have no other options. I’m not a brain surgeon. I’m not God. I’m just a fucking scientist. This is beyond any training I or any other being in the universe has. I don’t expect you to like it, but I have no other options! Would you rather try this, or get a bullet through your skull so you don’t turn and rip your baby apart?!” 

That was a lot. 

Emmy regretted saying it. But she could feel the energy in the room shift. 

She wasn’t wrong. There were no other options.

“If we froze you - “

“OUT of the question.”

Emmy made a sour face. She crossed it off her list. 

“Punching you in the chest does have a very low chance of succeeding. You’re correct. But it is a possibility. Electricity would also most certainly work, but it may leave some lasting damage. Brain surgery is out of the question. Maybe I could slow your heart rate down enough with drugs that it will assume you’re on the way out, but I don’t know. The worm hibernates when it isn’t actively in a host so it can survive extremes like that. So it might not even leave if your heart doesn’t fully stop.” 

Everyone got quiet again. The reality of this awful situation was more than they could handle. Emmy felt for them - and honestly, she felt for herself as well. This sucked. She didn’t want to kill Lucky. She didn’t want to deal with the alien worm in his skull. She didn’t want to deal with any of this - she wanted to be fucking asleep, if she was honest. 

“Maybe she’s right.”

It was Oakley’s turn in the spotlight. Everyone looked at him - including Lucky, who looked mortified. 

“I trust Emmy. If she thinks this is the best chance of saving you…”

“Are you high? She wants to kill me!” 

“Nobody wants you dead. Except maybe Sasha.”

Sasha nodded. He was picking at his nails with a knife, hardly listening. But he took the effort to nod in agreement like the asshole he was. 

“She wants to save you. Not play God. If she thinks this is the best chance, then I think it’s worth trying. Either way, something questionable is gonna happen.” 

Emmy could tell that Lucky’s feelings were hurt. As right as Oakley was, it was probably difficult to hear your partner tell you you should die. But he also looked defeated - and she watched him slowly begin to nod his head.

“Yeah, alright. Fuck it. Gonna die either way - might as well give it a shot.” 

“Thank you. I won’t let you down.” 

Getting someone set up to die is an experience Emmy did not think she would ever have to endure. Before they got him into his hospital bed, Lucky got to give out hugs, kisses, and goodbyes. Ollie didn’t understand what exactly was happening, and that broke the hearts of everyone in attendance ( except Sasha). Charlie and Lin took Ollie back to the sleeping quarters because Oakely wanted to stay, and Margo wanted to be there just in case something went wrong. Then they got Lucky naked, and back into the hospital bed where he had been chained just a little while earlier. Oakley held Lucky’s hand up until Emmy came over with the defibrillator. Then he kissed the back of his hand before letting it go. 

Emmy hated seeing the two of them like this. Lucky looked like a corpse already, and both of them were crying. Worse, it was the quiet cry of mourners. Even Margo couldn’t maintain her usual stoic nature. She had a prominent frown, and Emmy was sure her eyes were more sparkly than usual. Emmy herself fought a knot in her throat as she stepped over to Lucky’s side. He looked up at her the same way a puppy about to be euthanized might look at the offending veterinarian. Tears stung her eyes. 

“Whatever happens,” Emmy said, exhaling to loosen the tension in her throat. All it did was make her feel worse. She smiled, though. “It’ll be okay.” 

Lucky just nodded. 

Emmy turned the machine on, and began rubbing the contacts together. 

This was fucking bananas. 

“Clear!” 

And she zapped him. 

He shot off the bed a few inches as the electricity sucker punched his nervous system. Emmy dropped the contacts and pressed two fingers under his chin. Sure enough - no pulse. Now it was a waiting game. 

Emmy set a five minute timer on her tablet. 

All three people in the room felt every agonizing second tick by. It was like sitting on shards of glass. Watching Lucky’s lifeless body...move...was something else. Emmy could tell something was working, because his fingers were returning to normal. The damage the worm had done to his genome was slowly unraveling - which raised way more questions than it answered. It was beyond biology at this point. Emmy had ventured into new, horrifying territory with this situation. Nobody knew what to expect - but Emmy had a shot of adrenaline primed in her hand for when the time was right. 

The vibe in the room was so off, nobody noticed when the worm started to ooze out of Lucky’s nostril. It took Emmy a good minute to realize slime and blood were pouring out of his face. She gasped - which made everyone else look. Sure fucking shit, she had been right. Stopping Lucky’s heart was the key to removing the worm! 

Emmy didn’t waste any time. She wrapped her hand around the fat, greasy body of the worm and yanked it out. It was fucking massive - it dwarfed a banana slug, and was easily as thick as a half dollar. It thrashed in her hand - her monkey brain made her shriek and throw the fucker across the room. 

What happened next could’ve come out of a comedy sketch. 

Oakley’s little robot was trained to fetch organic trash. So when the worm twaped on the ground, it zoomed over like the good little bot it was and jammed it into its chassis, where it was instantly incinerated. 

Emmy stabbed Lucky in the heart with the shot. 

Lucky gasped and sat up instantly. He literally rose from the fucking dead the instant it hit him. The needle stuck out of his chest like a unicorn horn.

 _“WOW!”_ he gasped, “That’s the first situp I’ve done in fucking years!”


	17. New Tomorrows

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The crew looks out to the horizon, and towards new, brighter tomorrows.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow, thank you everyone for sticking with me this long! Sorry for the....very long hiatus. I hope the wait was worth it! And...perhaps, a sequel?

It was noon. 

Emmy was sitting in the office, nursing a warm cup of coffee flavored with cinnamon and lightened by a generous helping of heavy cream. She was finally looking clean. Instead of reddened bandages and ugly medical tape she had an honest-to-god eyepatch over the hole in her skull. The scarring would be severe, but she didn't mind. It was a sign of her survival. She was draped in a navy blue comforter, and dressed in warm pajamas. Her feet were wrapped in fuzzy teal socks. Her hair was done up in a half-assed bun. She looked - and felt, for the first time in a while - comfortable. There was no immediate threat of body-horror. There was no looming paperwork deadline. She did not have to worry about peeking into the hallway and seeing one of her crew mates shambling down the hall in a twisted amalgam of flesh and bone. She was safe, and so she was content. She took a sip of her coffee, taking the time to savor the subtle notes of maple and cinnamon dancing in the dark liquid. It sent a shiver down her back as it warmed her from the inside. After setting her pink kitten mug down, she reached for the last piece of raspberry jam-covered toast on her crumby plate. The raspberry jam had been imported from somewhere off-planet; a simple favor done for her in an act of gratitude for her unraveling of the brain-worm menace. 

_Hm._

Emmy pushed her glasses up her nose before casting a wayward glance to the shuttered window to her left. Outside, the new world they'd been delivered to waited for her to indulge in its soil. She had been holed up in her living space for some time now. The others gave her space to recover, and she couldn't express her gratitude properly in mere words. She took another bite of toast and washed it down with the last of her coffee before rising from her seat and heading for her bedroom. The living situation on this planet was ideal for her. Each crew member had been given what was, essentially, a trailer to live in. Each trailer was edited to fit the needs of each of them, despite being otherwise standard issue. Emmy's had a small kitchen, a large bathroom with a big tub, a bedroom with a very soft bed, and a small study where she could work. She had gotten to pick the interior, so everything was in various shades of mauve and white. _The Skeld_ had been salvaged ( as much as it could be ) and cleaned, so many of her things had been returned to her. She was impressed to find that some of her plants had survived drifting aimlessly in a lifeless vessel for as long as they had. As she moved to her bedroom, she ran her fingers across the long tendrils of her spider plant that hung down from the top of her fridge. Her bedroom was slowly evolving into a truly Emmy-centered space. She had few plushies when boarding _The Skeld_ all that time ago, but with each shipment of supplies, she was gifted with a new one. They were taking up so much of her bed by now that she had to mindful not to let her feet hang off the end of her bed. The sheets were pink, and the comforter was heavy, pink, and covered in cute cartoon cactuses. Her torn uniform was framed above her bed, still as tattered and bloody as the last time she wore it. It gave her nightmares, sometimes, but she liked to have a visual reminder that what happened was real. Emmy took her time getting dressed. She enjoyed the effort of looking through her wardrobe and picking out things that almost never matched. She decided for that day, she should wear a mint v-neck and a pair of acid-washed jeans. Of course, her socks were bright red with little unicorns on them, and she put on a pair of muddy purple chucks. She fixed her hair so it was in a neat braid, before grabbing her backpack and heading outside. 

The planet they now inhabited was a somewhat new colony. It had been around long enough to be self-sufficient for the most part, but not so long that the roads were paved or the brush was gone. It was desolate enough to be comfortable, is what Emmy said. The environment was like a giant forest, with trees taller than most buildings back on Earth. The soil was dark and rich. The ground was covered in huge roots - so huge, in fact, that many research and development buildings were built on them. The air here was immaculately clean and always cool, but humid. The sun shone for much longer here than on Earth. It was a good place to be. 

Emmy, Lucky, Oakley, and Margo had been placed within spitting distance of each other. As she walked by Lucky and Oakely's trailer, she waved. All three of the little family was outside working in their little garden. Ollie was covered in mud, as he often was. Emmy took a detour from her adventure of the day to say hi. 

"Afternoon," Emmy said cooly. She smiled at Ollie as he waved at her enthusiastically. "You three look comfy."

Lucky was sitting in a lawn chair sipping what looked like lemonade. He raised his class. "We are. Oakely says the corn will be ready soon." 

"It will," chimes Oakley, from somewhere within the tall green stalks. "The soil here is great..." 

Emmy hums. "How's the head doing?" 

"Best as it can be," Lucky says with a shrug. He sips his lemonade. He looks very comfortable out here, on this planet. Emmy can't remember a day where she had seen him wearing anything other than overalls and a belly shirt. His hair was black with a green streak these days. It suited him. "Still having some memory issues and I cannot stop sleeping, but you know how it is."

"I do. I'm glad you're doing alright, though. I expected much more brain damage."

He snorts. "Would you really notice a difference? I ate rocks as a kid."

They share a good laugh. Emmy bids them a quick goodbye, before heading over to Margo's stretch of paradise. Her trailer is much different than Emmy's; for one, she took the liberty of painting flowers on the outside by hand. And, most importantly, she had a paddock for animals attached to the side. Margo was the proud owner of this planet's first two sheep, first dairy cow, and first three chickens. She was trying her damndest to get a horse - but it was hard to pin one down this far out into space. She was trying very hard to convince the local geneticist she needed one. You know - for work. 

Margo was outside milking her cow when Emmy arrived. 

"Margo!" Emmy called. The woman in question looked over from behind the cow with a big smile on her face. 

Gosh, she was a knock-out. 

Planet life had been very good to her. Margo found purpose in ranching, and had taken to letting all of her stresses float away by wearing nothing but jeans, t-shirts, cowboy boots and wide-brimmed hats. She always let her curly hair fall in a cloud around her face these days. Emmy was lucky to find her with a flower in her hair that day, as well as a gray shirt and muddy jeans. She had a red flannel tied around her waist. Margo got up from her stool and picked up her milk bucket, before moseying over to the fence Emmy was now leaning on.

" _Buenas tardes,_ " she said with a smile. Emmy got up on her tippy-toes to give her a peck on the cheek. "Where are you off to?"

"Oh, you know...gonna go bother Felix for some horse genes again. What else?"

Margo laughed, "Oh, are you? He's going to keep saying no."

"I don't think so. I'm bribing him with blond roast from Earth."

Margo gasps. Her eyes sparkle. "You're not giving up _name-brand_ for me, are you?"

Emmy shrugs. "What can I say? I'm pretty great." 

Margo tuts and flips Emmy's braid over her shoulder before kissing her. Margo and Emmy were new-ish; both of them had a lot to work through, after all. But they found some solace in each other's company. Margo had helped take care of Emmy once they got on planet. After all, Emmy wasn't used to solid ground. Margo had been born on Earth, so she had some pointers to share. 

"Well you have fun getting that horse for me. I'll be here working. If you're back in about an hour, I'll make you cucumber sandwiches."

Emmy puts a hand over her heart, "Oh, _Margo,_ you spoil me!"

"I do. Now get! I want you back here on time." 

Margo gave Emmy a slap on the ass to get her going, which ended in both of them giggling. Emmy thinks about using one of the many hover-scooters they have corralled to get to Felix's place, but decides to enjoy the walk. She needs to get used to the pressure from real gravity on her joints, much as it may hurt. 

As she walks, she enjoys the wetness of the air hitting the back of her throat, as well as the local avians flitting and calling high above her in the canopy. The air here always smells like dirt and fruit. It's peaceful. 

She can't help but think about the events of the months prior as she walks. After they cleaned up on Polus, it had taken some time for them to find someplace safe to be. They drifted in space for two weeks before being picked up by a deep-space mining rig. The worms had infected numerous colonies and ships, they learned. Emmy had been the key to letting command know how to stop them. They were still working on eradicating the worms from the human population in space, even after Emmy and the crew landed on this new home of theirs. The fight was a hard one, but humanity was winning. Emmy and her crew were being hailed as heroes. It all felt...hollow, sometimes, though. Hugh and the others should be there celebrating alongside them. Each time a victory for the humans was announced, Emmy always shut herself inside and tucked herself away in bed. She was a hero, as told by the medals hidden under her bed and the fancy foods she was allowed to have. But she didn't feel like one. 

Emmy took a detour to a small lake in the more untouched section of the woods. Nobody really went out that far, what with being focused on resource management rather than expansion with the war going on. The lake was full of shiny pink crystals that jutted out of white stone walls. It was lifeless, but flowers from the trees above sometimes drifted down and into the water. It was like a scene from a movie, Emmy thought. She took a seat on the edge of a big rock that jutted out over the lake. She took a moment to stare down at her one-eyed reflection, before rummaging through her bag, and pulling out a hunk of metal. 

It was a chunk of her ship. She had saved a piece before the metal was scrapped. Something to hold on to, something to remember her ship by. 

But she had to move on. This planet was a new chapter; not just for her, and not just for her crew - but for humanity. 

She was sentimental. She didn't know _how_ to move on. 

This was the first step. 

She extended her arm over the lake. The bottom was miles below the surface. It was deceptively deep. 

She'd never see it again. 

Somewhere, her brain begged her not to do it. It was disrespectful, wasn't it? The last piece of proof that _The Skeld_ ever existed would be lost to this crystal lake. All of her memories, all of her lost crew members would be drowned by the clear water. 

She hesitated. 

This would be her last goodbye. 

She opened her hand, and the metal plummeted until it splooshed into the water below. Emmy watched it - and the horrible memories of that ship - sink to the bottom of the lake.


End file.
